Everything I Never Knew (Peroration)
by DeejayMil
Summary: A collection of one-shots and moments before, during and after the events of Everything I Never Knew (Reprise). "Time passes and for Aaron Hotchner, things are good. Not just good. For the first time he has no doubt about his future. His future is Jack and Spencer and the house they make a home. This is what comes after the story ended."
1. From Our Outside, In

**Chapter One: From Our Outside, In**

 ** _Six moments that shaped him_**

 **.**

 **.**

He'd read the letter (more like an essay, with the length and complexity) the student had sent him and had been sorely impressed. On his next recruitment circuit of the colleges, he'd made a point to visit Caltech to see the author in person.

He'd expected many things. A brilliant but socially reclusive young man; withdrawn from his peers and immersed in his studies. The student introduced himself as a sophomore. The deep research he'd obviously put into his many queries said otherwise. He would have placed him at a graduate level, at least.

He expected a student with the forwardness to approach a 'famed' profiler with his thoughts, and to present them in such a way that he clearly didn't expect disagreement. He was correct, in all of his statements, and made connections that Gideon himself wouldn't have made in his college years, but it showed a level of confidence that was startling.

They were taught not to assume, but he found himself with a firm assumption held in mind anyway. The student's daemon would be one of the traditionally 'clever' species. A corvid, or perhaps an anole. Something smart and fierce, but small. Solitary. Driven. Ambitious.

He'd expected a younger version of himself.

When he walked into the office he'd been given for his interviews with prospective candidates, he almost walked back out again. A boy sat in the chair, scuffing the carpet idly with his battered shoe, arm draped loosely over the side of the chair for his fingers to trail along the back of a leporid daemon.

The hare turned his head and saw Gideon standing in the doorway and the boy bolted upright, almost tripping in his haste. Wide eyes behind thick glasses stared at him, half-obscuring the kind of face that Gideon would have termed 'pretty' if he was asked to describe it later. "Jason Gideon?" the boy squeaked, before flushing red and appearing to choke on his words.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Gideon had asked politely, resisting the urge to lean back and see if the student he was expecting was sitting outside the office waiting for him.

Because surely this kid, this teenager, couldn't possibly...

"Spencer Reid," the kid's daemon said, standing on his hind legs and staring at Gideon with disarming confidence, a startling juxtaposition to his blushing human. Gideon almost glanced around to see if there was another daemon there, a mouse or sparrow, one that actually belonged to the kid. "We sent you a letter requesting a meeting to discuss our work?"

Which was how Jason Gideon found himself giving the strangest interview of his life, speaking instead to the hare as though the boy was his daemon, silent and watchful. Gideon met his eyes throughout the meeting and found his gaze scrutinizing, clearly taking note of everything that was being said and committing it to memory.

"What do you think?" he had asked Houlihan after the boy and his odd talkative daemon had left.

His hawk shuffled, tilting her beak towards the seat that Spencer Reid had vacated, looking thoughtful. "I think as soon as that kid hits twenty, there's going to be an alphabet bidding war for his services that we'd do well to get a head start on."

Five years later and Gideon looks up to find Spencer Reid, taller and slightly more confident in his own skin, standing in his doorway with a nervous smile. His hare is at his side, holding himself with the same self-assured bearing he'd worn all those years ago and watching Gideon with sharp brown eyes. "You asked to see us?" Reid says quietly.

Gideon settles back in his chair and smiles, their correspondence over the years spread out in front of him. He'd kept a close eye indeed on the now Doctor Spencer Reid. He wasn't the only one. "Yes. Have a seat… we have a job vacancy. How does Behavioural Analysis sound to you?"

A satisfied expression flickers over the younger man's face, and Gideon once again reconsiders his opinion.

Perhaps he is like him after all.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

The nightmare begins with three simple words and they burn themselves into Garcia's mind. If this is what it's like to have an eidetic memory, Reid can keep it.

Morgan's voice, usually so calm and focused, except as he said those words. _"Hankel has Reid."_

It was everything that kept her awake at night. Six of her family walking out that door, and only five returning. Garcia can't think for the fear of that moment.

Then she gets over it and gets to work. Reid needs her to get to work. He needs her to be brilliant, more brilliant than ever before, because she's going to bring him home and never let him go again.

The first video is horrific. She wants to pull Reid close and hold him tight until that numb, shell-shocked expression leaves his face, because he's their baby and he shouldn't ever look like that, not ever.

Gideon says something behind her and for a long irrational moment she wants to turn and slap him. To strike out at him because she needs to blame someone for this, and why not the guy who'd thought it would be a good idea to bring the sweetest and most harmless man in the world into the field?

Then Hotch leans closer to the screen and speaks in a low voice only she can hear, and his words shatter every last bit of anger she feels and leave her hollow.

"Come back to me," he says, and suddenly it all makes horrifying sense. Aureilo and Hal's closeness, the way Hotch sometimes softens slightly when Reid smiles, the desperation in Hal's voice when she told them to find him. _Oh, Hotch_. "Please come back to me."

Not like this. They can't lose him like this. Either of them.

But they do.

The hare buckles in Hal's paws and Garcia is standing, torn between reaching out for someone and crumpling to the floor as it sways under her feet. Everything slows except for Reid falling to the ground on the screen, and Aureilo being dragged after him.

"He's killing him," someone sobs in a broken voice, and she distantly recognises herself. Tupelo's claws are cutting into her shoulder, the magpie adding to her cries with his own panicked warbling.

Hotch steps forward and he looks calm. Garcia clings to that.

She pictures Reid and she pictures Hotch and all their daemons and her team and her family and she draws a circle around them in her mind that will keep them safe. Keep them safe because it's her love and everything she has, and it can't _fail_.

Then Reid goes still and Hotch breaks and her circles shatter. Garcia is never going to have to imagine what their victims' families go through anymore, because she sees it in that moment on Hotch's face and she's never going to forget it.

He staggers as though pole-axed, turning away from the screen, towards Aureilo.

The hare is still there.

They watch in silence as he buckles and scoops Spencer's daemon up in shaking hands.

 _Move, baby_ , Garcia pleads, as Hotch stares at the hare like they're the only creatures left in the room. As though he's memorizing him. _Get up, Spencer. Please, please, we'll do anything, anything at all, just please get up we can't do this without you… We love you we love you so much you don't even know and if you don't come home we can't ever tell you._

Aureilo says something she doesn't catch because everything has turned muffled and distant through the sound of her wordless pleading.

Then he's gone. The air glitters. She watches the Dust cascade from Hotch's slack fingers and pool around his feet.

It doesn't make sense because she loves Spencer too much for him to possibly be dead. The amount she loves him, they amount they all love him, he should have had forever.

Garcia could learn to hate the colour gold.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

When he'd first met Hotshot, Rossi had instantly pegged him as the kind of man who would push away anyone who came too close. Everything from the disturbingly blank expression he could effortlessly slip on like a mask, to the bristling fur of his obnoxiously large wolf daemon screamed, "Commitment issues."

And if there was one thing David Rossi understood, it was commitment issues.

He hadn't really expected him to last. But he did.

He hadn't expected to go back to the BAU after retiring. But old cases picked at his mind and left him restless, pacing his house with the clawing knowledge of work left undone. And he went back.

He hadn't ever expected Hotshot to fall in love.

But one look at the expression on Aaron Hotchner's face when they walk into the squad-room and the tall stranger stands to greet them, and Rossi realizes that since he'd met Hotch, he'd spent an awful lot of time being wrong.

The man's daemon says something but Rossi is staring at Hotch's face so the only thing he takes in is the stupid, soppy smile that his old friend is wearing.

Hotch turns his head slightly and spots him, and the smile vanishes like it was never there at all, but Rossi can still see the ghost of it in his eyes and the corner of his mouth.

He doesn't think he's ever smiled like that before and damnit, he is _not_ jealous of Aaron fucking Hotchner, thank you very much.

"So this is Doctor Reid," his traitorous mouth says even though his head is screaming, _really, Hotch? This guy? I've written books bigger than him!_ "He's very…" He reaches for the word. Scrawny. Gawky. Pretty. _Male_. "Young."

"He's brilliant," Hotch snaps, and Rossi sees it again.

Hotch is in love.

He bets the man hasn't even realized it himself yet.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

There's something brittle about the man and his hare sitting in their kitchen with their shoulders slumped, lost in their own heads as usual. Morgan hesitates, glancing back into the living room where their teammates chatter, before slowly walking over there. The soft pad of Naemaria's paws follows him, almost inaudible, but he knows she's there as definitely as he knows his own reflection. She's a constant.

Reid's a constant too, his too-smart-for-his-own-good friend and his mouthy hare. He's a constant whether he's throwing himself head first into a case with all the passion for knowledge and investigation that led him through a fistful of degrees, or whether he's pensively tracing the tip of his nail around the rim of his glass and pulling all the weight of the world down onto himself.

Emily had once declared that when given space Reid has a tendency to drown in it, and as Morgan draws closer and notes the distance between the morose profiler and his husband in the other room with his back to them, he's inclined to believe her.

"Pretty Boy," Morgan says, slapping him on the shoulder and sliding onto the stool next to him with one smooth movement. It's not a nickname that really fits anymore. He hasn't been a boy in a long time.

He _is_ still very pretty though.

"Morgan." Reid says it flat, deadpan, no attempt to hide his misery. He doesn't so much anymore. He used to, when he was younger and frailer and with so much less to lose. Now with a family?

Yeah well, Morgan's damn glad the kid has finally learned to value something other than others. If it means he wears his vest more often and doesn't take as many stupid risks… yeah, he's damn glad.

"Right, spill." Morgan nabs the glass out from under Reid's hands and drains it, clinking it back down and smirking at the disconcerted expression on the other man's face. "You look like you did that time Aureilo fell down the storm drain chasing a perp."

There's an irritated huff from under Reid's stool. Judging from the way Reid's mouth twitches upwards, the hare is the only one who doesn't find that recollection amusing.

It's the work of a moment to pour two fresh drinks, and they sit in silence. It's not an awkward kind of silence. It's a heavy kind of waiting silence, a sad silence, and Morgan feels his shoulders tensing because it's the kind of silence that precedes a 'I'm not okay' confession.

"Charlie is," Reid begins, and the alcohol burns as Morgan's mouth immediately dries, "Struggling."

"Struggling?" he queries, because Charlie is two and her father all over, and that comes with a whole host of positives and negatives, and some of those negatives can't be fixed simply with the addition of a doting family. "With what?"

He casts over his mind for the last time he'd seen the reserved kid. There was a half-remembered idea of a sticky hand sneaking onto Reid's plate while his back was turned last Christmas at Rossi's, taking the last cracker Reid had resting there. A quick flash of two faces peering down the stairs when Morgan had picked Reid up for work one day after his car had broken down and Hotch was caught up. Both times, the kid looked happy enough.

But Morgan knew better than anyone that outward appearances could be deceiving.

There's an angry yowl from the backdoor that cuts off their conversation, and Henry flies through the door with Filimay on his shoulder, pelting for his mom. Jack follows seconds later, not even seeing them in his haste to profess his innocence for whatever he'd just done. Morgan chuckles, then stops as the door sways and Charlie toddles through after her brother, mouth open in a gappy smile and eyes scanning her surroundings keenly. Her daemon is on her shoulder, a green scaled lizard with a flickering tongue, and unlike her brother, Charlie sees her Papa instantly.

"Hey kiddo," Morgan says, glancing at Reid for permission before sliding down onto his knees and smiling at the kid. Reid is silent. "What are you up to, huh? Playing with the boys?"

Charlie looks at him, then looks away. She doesn't answer, but he's used to that. Kid is shy.

When he leans forward and tickles her chin to bring her eyes up, they settle on a point to the left of his face and her mouth scrunches up angrily at the intrusion.

Oh.

"Spencer…" he says, crossing his legs and sitting flat on his ass on the cold tiles. "Have you…?"

"Aaron wants to," Reid replies stiffly. "But…" He trails off, then calls softly to his daughter. "Charlie, love. Come here."

She ignores him, turning her attention to the lizard on her shoulder and giggling softly as it races around the line of her throat eagerly. Reid raps on the counter with his knuckles, calls again. Her attention snaps to him.

"Papa," she says solemnly, then wobbles her way over to him, still unsteady on her feet. "Up, please."

Morgan watches as his best friend and brother scoops up his daughter and cuddles her close, grimy hands wrapping around his neck as she burrows her face against his chest. Reid's looking over her head, down at Morgan himself, and his expression is miserable.

Sometimes their fears aren't so easily faced.

"She's reached every verbal milestone and surpassed many of them," Reid says finally, ignoring Charlie when she wriggles to be let down and tugging her closer, clinging almost. "Any repetitive behaviours she shows are mild, nothing disruptive… she's developing fine. She's fine. It's just the… she's not responsive, sometimes. Just sometimes. Not all the time."

Morgan stands and his knees creak in complaint. "Spence," he cuts him off, stepped over and running his hand across Charlie's curly hair. "There's nothing wrong with her. No matter what the doctors say _when_ you take her to see them… this isn't your failing, or hers, or Hotch's. She's still fantastic, and nothing will change that. I promise you."

Reid lets her down slowly and she scampers away, her papa's arms already forgotten. He watches her go, and Aureilo watches him, and Morgan watches the both and waits to see where they take this. They're too smart not to face it head on, he knows.

"Thanks," Reid says, standing and hesitantly brushing his hand against Morgan's arm. Morgan rolls his eyes, wraps his own arm around his friend's shoulders, and drags him protesting into a one-armed hug. "Morgan… _mppfh_!"

When they walk back into the living room, Hotch has Charlie on his knee and he's bouncing her while simultaneously discussing politics with Will. Reid walks over and settles his hand onto his husband's shoulder, smiling uncertainly. He says something Morgan doesn't catch, but Hotch does.

Hotch nods once, his own mouth turning upwards, and the tension in Morgan's shoulders leeches away, just a little.

Yeah. They'll be fine.

He's sure of it.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

There are many reasons why Emily knows that people mutter behind their hands about her skills as a mother.

 _No father, you know. How can she expect to raise her girl by herself when she works so much?_

 _Puts her job first._

 _Lets the girl run wild, no boundaries._

Yeah, she knows. She knows that the old bitch up the hall thinks she's loose, and that the man downstairs hates that woman and to spite her always saves sweets from his shop just for Margo. She knows her mother scolds and worries—god does she know—and she sometimes wonders herself if this is the life she'd have picked for her kid.

But Margo seems fine. She's Emily all over, although there's a softness to her that Emily knows comes more from her dad than Emily herself. She's grateful for many things that Mark's given her, and one of those is the gentleness that Margo personifies, so much like JJ, and something that Emily knows she's far too rough to have ever passed on.

But this? This is probably going to get her on the shitlist with every busybody on the street who thinks they're entitled to an opinion. Also with Mark.

Especially with Mark.

She tells him. How can she not? She doesn't _ask_ him, because Spencer is her friend and he needs her help, and he's the last thing in the world from dangerous. She won't leave him in the rehab clinic Hotch had him tucked away in, out of sight out of mind.

She's fucking pissed at Aaron, and maybe that's partly why she brings the recovering addict into her home with her five-year-old daughter. A silent _if I trust him with my child, why won't you trust him with yours? With his?_

She takes Margo to the park to see Mark, and leaves Reid slinking around her house like the Ghost of Spencers Past. He's not the same as he was and that hurts so much sometimes she lays awake at night and focuses on the point of her wall where she knows he is, just _wishing_ she could fix everything for him.

"Emily," Mark greets her, brushing his lips against her cheek, before crouching to draw Margo into his arms. Their daemons mingle, Qaises snuffling as he runs his narrow muzzle over Vetiver's wriggling puppy body. Sergio keeps back, wrapped around Emily's neck and watching the two canids carefully, the greyhound and the retriever puppy. Tivvy hasn't shown any inclination towards feline forms, and he's still sore about that. "How are you, my love?"

He's talking to Margo now, who babbles back happily, tugging him towards the swings, and Emily trails behind.

"Will you tell him?" Sergio asks, right as Margo's voice floats over to them from the swings happily declaring, "Mummy has a boyfriend!"

Oh boy.

"I think Margo just did," she replies, watching Mark's face flicker. She wonders, in that moment, if he still loves her. And for that moment, she wonders if she ever loved him.

She tells him everything, while they sit on a park bench under a rare London sun, and Margo chases Tivvy around the park, climbing trees and getting her knees dirty. Every time she turns to check on her parents, Emily has to bite back a thrill of pride. _This is my daughter_ , she thinks every time. _With the childhood I didn't get._

Which was the biggest fuck you to the busybodies and her mother she could possibly imagine, and Sergio purrs happily.

Mark says very little, but he walks them home and that's concerning. That smacks a little bit of 'checking up on you' and Emily Prentiss has never been one to need checking up on, and she doesn't like the implication that she'd start now with a daughter to think of. It's getting her back up, and she knows she's getting cranky and stubborn and it's only a short jump from that to her and Mark fighting again in full view of the neighbours, or Reid.

"Spence," she says, when Mark follows her into their flat without a word and they find her houseguest standing waiting for them in the kitchen. Dressed, thankfully, although he needs a shave and there's an emptiness to his eyes that sinks ice into her gut. Aureilo is nowhere to be seen. "This is Mark. Margo's dad. Mark, this is Spencer."

"Pleasure to meet you," Reid murmurs, and actually holds his hand out to shake. Emily stares. It looks… wrong, and her heart lurches at this minute difference. "Margo is delightful. She talks about you a lot."

"'Pence, play chess?" Margo demands, storming into the room with one pigtail coming lose and mud on her nose. There's a battered chess set in her hand that isn't theirs, and Emily has a sudden horrible feeling that the well-loved and worn pieces in her daughter's clumsy hands are Reid's, salvaged from the wreck of his mother's belongings.

"Of course," Reid replies quietly, nodding at them both, and sitting cross-legged by the couch so Margo can thrust the chessboard under his nose. Aureilo appears, shambling after Margo, and lays flat against his leg, watching the game. "White plays first, Margo. See the pawn? These little ones? They can move like this…"

Mark excuses himself and Emily sees him out. The silence between them is fraught with everything unsaid.

"He's no danger," she says finally, setting her jaw in a stubborn line. "He's depressed and ill, but he's not dangerous to her or me. And he's… my friend. I love him, Mark. I won't leave him to suffer alone."

He glances at her, the green eyes that had drawn her in the first time she'd seen him vivid against his brown skin. The beautiful eyes and complexion that Margo had inherited, and only added to the busybodies' muttering. "I can tell you love him," he said finally, mouth twisting into the smile that still set her heart thumping. They hadn't worked as a couple, but they were still a partnership. Margo tied them together. That was a kind of family too. "It's fine, Emily. I won't tell you what to do with your life, and I know you'd never endanger her. Where is his family?"

Emily thinks about that for a moment and tries not to let the complications of that question show on her face when she answers.

"They're waiting for him to come home."

She hopes.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He reads the unsigned letter (more like an essay, he thinks, and that's familiar enough to stun him into giving it the time of day) she'd sent him, and is reluctantly impressed. But his life is simple now, no time for the world that had almost destroyed him, and he's inclined to put it down and move on. It's not the only fan mail he's gotten over the years. It probably won't be the last, when he bothers to stay still long enough to have a postal address.

But this one.

This one catches his eye. He doesn't respond. It's a simple letter, despite the length, and intriguingly in depth. She asks about his theories. She asks about his work. She introduces herself as fourteen, and he has trouble believing that, but he can't see why she would lie. It has a DC postal code, and that's enough to stop him from replying. He puts it aside.

She sends him another a year later. He still doesn't reply. In fact, he doesn't read it.

When he does, finally, because he goes to his cabin only two months later and there's another two with the same postcode, there's a kind of reservation to it. This time he absolutely believes that she's fifteen, because there's a painful emotion to the letter that speaks of things withheld.

The second he opens is much the same, but this time it ends with a query about his whereabouts. ' _Will you be in DC anytime within the next five years?'_ it asks. _I would love to discuss your theories with you._

He puts it aside and opens the third. This one is short.

 _Thank you for your time. Please disregard my last letters._

He feels almost bad. Houlihan shuffles around his desk, talons tapping on his writing paper, and he can hear the silent _reply to her, you old bastard_ his daemon isn't saying.

He doesn't. He's in the habit of letting people down, and this nameless girl with her letters and her quiet queries is only another in the line of them.

When he gets another letter, it's two years later and she's seventeen. He doesn't immediately realize it's her because the postage is from London now and the writing has changed enough she's not immediately recognisable. But something about it wakes up the old profiler in him, and he finds her old letters (he'd kept them because he'd always been sentimental, always, and even this stranger felt precious to him now), dusts them off, and compares them.

It's her.

There's a focus to her letters that wasn't there before. She'd queried his theories, questioned his motivations, brought up past mistakes before—never cruelly, always with a point—but now there's an angle to her writing. She's looking for something, some guidance, something to direct her towards a decision she's already made.

"Jason…" says Houlihan, reading over his shoulder. "She writes like…"

He shuts his daemon up before she can say it, but they're both thinking it. It's a leap though.

It's a leap that finally inspires his reply.

 _When you return to DC, it would be my pleasure to answer your questions in person._

When she's nineteen, he meets her.

He hadn't expected anything, really. A young man many years ago had taught him the error of assuming, and this time he was ready. But maybe a part of him, a small, needy part, was assuming. Maybe that small part _wanted_ him to be correct, because that would mean that the man Gideon had failed all those years ago hadn't been hurt so much by that damage that he'd never recovered.

He wonders if her daemon will be a hare as well.

He wonders who her mother is.

He wonders if he'll be there.

She agrees to meet him at a café in DC, and when he walks into the café he knows her immediately. She's tall and thin and her hair is wild and cropped short to try to keep it from her eyes. When she looks up, her glasses slip awkwardly down her nose and she shoves them up with a practised gesture that's so _him_ it takes his breath away.

He'd call her pretty, but her father's hidden strength stares out at him from her eyes and there's an anger in them too that he deserves.

"Jason Gideon?" she asks, her voice soft and cautious, and her daemons uncurls from the seat next to her and eyes them both. An African Serval. Solitary. Ambitious. Driven. She's open about that strength her father hides. "My name is Charlie Reid. You knew my father."

Knew.

He closes his eyes and savours that grief.

Then he sits and answers every question she asks him, because he owes the boy he'd met and the man he'd abandoned that much.

Every question.

"Why didn't you ever come back?"

Even that one.

"I was running. I'll always regret that. I was running and I didn't know to stop until there was nothing left to stop for."

There's a satisfied flicker across her face, like he's answered some great mystery she'd inherited from her father along with his eyes and his intelligence. Gideon cements his opinion of her.

She's nothing like him at all. She's too much like Spencer Reid to ever remind Gideon of himself.

And she's going to be every bit as impressive as her father was.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **AN: Several events that are referenced in this chapter haven't yet taken place if you're direct from Reprise. They'll be covered in Encore, or later in Peroration (including Charlie's birth, Reid's relapse)**

 **For more information, Chapter Sixteen is a complete timeline that I'll update as I go along in this world!**

 **And a MASSIVE THANK YOU to my beta, Tafferling, for all her work with this piece!**


	2. We'll Always Have This

**Chapter Two: We'll Always Have This**

 ** _A long awaited event finally comes to pass._**

 **.**

 **.**

 _"_ _Your wedding completely changes the direction of your life, you know, no matter how greatly you desire it. I think that moment of doubt and faintness comes from all those imagined and now impossible futures all pressing in on you at once. It is your last chance to experience them, you see, and they all want to be lived at that moment."_

― **Sharon Shinn** , **_Jenna Starborn_**

 ** _._**

"My biggest duty as best woman and it's picking the suits up," Emily jokes as her and JJ enter the tailor's shop. The air-conditioning blasts against their faces as they walk in, and Kailo ducks under JJ's collar to avoid being blown away. JJ laughs and puts a hand up to shield him.

"You really think this is your biggest duty?" she says with a smile. "You still have to get Reid up to the altar without him trying to make a run back to Vegas."

Emily groans as she's suddenly able to vividly picture the panic on her young friend's face when he realizes that this is it, he's getting hitched. She suspects she's going to need rope.

"Don't worry." JJ looks sympathetic now as she lays a hand on the counter and peers over for the worker. "Jack's Hotch's best man. He'll help you."

"Fantastic," Emily mutters to Sergio. He twitches his tail. His face is deadpan, but she can feel his amusement. "I have a seven-year-old helping me. Cross your whiskers and pray nothing goes wrong."

"Nothing will," Kailo whispers reassuringly, his voice muffled by JJ's shirt.

He's wrong.

"Do you think Reid can fit into Hotch's suit?" Emily asks Rossi later that night as they stare despairingly at the two formal outfits laid out on the bed.

"Only if you want him to look like he's playing dress up in Daddy's clothes," Eris says, settling her wings with a loud rustle. "And the only way we're getting Hotch into Reid's suit is with a hacksaw. Reid's a stick."

Rossi hums and runs one finger thoughtfully over the delicate stitching on the breast of what should have been Reid's suit, the careful gold wolf stitched there. On the other, a leaping golden hare.

On the wrong ones.

Her most simple job and she's buggered it up. She's not quite English enough yet to keep a stiff upper lip about these things.

"Hotch is going to shoot me," she says with another groan, covering her eyes.

"Maybe not…" Rossi says. He flicks a bit of lint off of one of the suits. "I mean… well they're two men getting married. Tradition is already out of the window, right?"

She lifts her head. "I'm listening."

Maybe there's hope for the night yet.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Morgan had happily joined JJ in teasing Reid about his upcoming nuptials.

None of them had been game enough to tease Hotch.

But he'd assumed that Emily would be the one to actually deal with Reid on the night of the wedding. Apparently, he'd assumed wrong.

He's helping Rossi with the tables in Rossi's back garden when his phone dings loudly. Naemaria looks up from where she's helping Eris string small glittering lights, her ears pricked with interest.

 **FROM: Prentiss**

 **CODE I'VE FUCKING LOST REID. PLEASE TELL ME YOU'VE SEEN HIM.**

Well, shit.

 **TO: Prentiss**

 **How did you lose him? Just shout out an incorrect statistic and then follow the sound of him correcting you.**

The reply is instant, and Rossi looks suspicious. Morgan shoots him his best 'nothing is wrong' grin and the suspicion grows.

Damn profilers.

 **FROM: Prentiss**

 **HE'S TALL BUT SNEAKY. MORGAN WE HAVE TWO HOURS TO FIND HIM. HELP ME OR I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL SHOW HOTCH THOSE PHOTOS OF YOU FROM THE FBI BAR CRAWL.**

Morgan rolls his eyes at the phone, before whistling innocently and sauntering away. "Just going to the bathroom," he calls back over his shoulder, Naemaria scampering to catch up.

"When you find Reid, can you ask him what time his mom is getting here?" Rossi shouts back. His voice sounds like he's smirking. He's probably smirking.

Damn profilers.

"I can snuff him out," Naemaria offers, dropping her head and racing across the path in a happy zig-zag pattern. "I'll just follow the scent of coffee and rabbit. Piece of cake."

"Do it quickly," Morgan says. There's a quick burst of affection in his chest for his daemon as she wags her tail, much cheerier on the hunt than while helping Eris decorate the backyard. "Emily's probably about to have a heart attack. Now _that's_ going to be hard to explain to Hotch."

Naemaria bays once, softly, before bounding into the garden. Morgan follows at a jog.

Reid hasn't gone far. They find him standing at the garden's edge, watching the sun dip down with a strangely composed expression. Morgan's relieved to note that he's at least dressed, his suit cut finely around his body, perfectly tailored. Even his hair is neat. Short enough not to be sticking out wildly but long enough that there's the suggestion of curls around his ears.

"Running away, long ear?" Naemaria asks Aureilo as she taps her nose against the hare's head. Aureilo shrugs, the dimming light catching his eyes, tan fur gleaming. Morgan smiles at the bow-tie and formal cape the hare wears, hanging just over his shoulders. There's a tiny wolf in the corner of the black fabric, nowhere near as intricate as the one on Reid's suit, but still recognisable. Hal will be wearing one just like it, but with a hare in place of the wolf.

Rossi and Emily had outdone themselves with fixing the tailor's error.

"I'm not running away," Reid says quietly. "I know exactly where I'm going."

Morgan steps up beside him and touches his arm gently. "And where's that?"

Reid smiles, closing his eyes and tilting his head back slightly, just like Aureilo does when the hare stops to listen to faraway sounds. "Forward."

 **TO: Prentiss**

 **Everything's fine. He's fine. He's more than fine.**

 **FROM: Prentiss**

 **Holy shit, Derek. He's getting married. I think it just hit me. He's all grown up.**

 **TO: Prentiss**

 **I think he's been grown up for a while. We've just only noticed.**

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He'll never admit it, but Rossi is actually a little teary eyed at proceedings. He had kind of half expected something to go wrong by now-something usually did with these two-but it hadn't and here they are, and Rossi is standing in front of two of his friends as they finally get married.

About fucking time.

 _Hotshot, you dog,_ he thinks silently to himself, smirking as Hotch takes a very obvious calming breath and turns to face his about-to-be-husband. Reid is almost green with nerves, a look that isn't actually that new on him, but Rossi has only ever seen Hotch look this worried a handful of times before.

Eris is puffed up and proud on his shoulder, and she should be because this is a big damn moment for their weird little family. Aureilo and Hal sit together in front of the two grooms. They're close enough that their shoulders are touching, and while their humans seem determined to avoid eye contact with each other, the two daemons can't seem to look away.

If anyone there had doubted that the two men were in love, one look at their daemons would prove otherwise. Rossi has never seen Hal look so… soft.

"Ready?" Rossi says finally because someone needs to get the ball rolling or else they'll be standing here shuffling their feet all night. Or Reid will probably pass out. Rossi's not entirely sure that the kid is remembering to breathe.

Hotch nods and straightens and the strain suddenly slides from his shoulders like water from a duck's back. He _smiles._ Not one of his rare smiles either, hesitant and slightly hidden, but a real full smile and Rossi's only ever seen _that_ once and Hotch was introducing him to an infant Jack at the time.

"Spencer William Reid," Hotch begins, because of course Hotch blazes a trail for the two of them to walk together, even in this. "Traditionally, this is where I would state that I choose to be yours for the rest of our lives but I don't believe that there's any choice involved. We look to our future and we see only one. In that Halaimon and I are by your side and we sleep in your arms as your family. In this moment, in front of everyone we love and who loves us in return, we vow to be faithful to that future because for us there is absolutely no other option.

Since the day I met you, you've constantly surprised me. First by being you, in every way, a force of life and vitality that I hadn't expected but one I quickly grew to rely on.

Second by being the kind of person who I could, and did, fall irrevocably in love with. I was never very good at knowing what I wanted but I knew from the moment you first smiled at me that I wanted you.

Third, you loved me back. I never expected that but I am endlessly grateful. I believe as we begin the next stage of our lives that you'll continue to surprise me, and I look forward to you doing so.

We promise to respect you as a partner, as a friend, as an equal and as a father to our son. And we will love you without pause, for everything that you are and that we promise to be. In this moment I become your husband and Halaimon a part of your soul, if you'll have us."

Reid stares at him, and Rossi thinks with glee that they've finally found something to shut the mouthy genius up.

Who knew that heartfelt vows were the kid's weakness?

Of course, seconds later it becomes apparent that although they're all waiting patiently, he appears to have either had a complete shutdown of his mental facilities or he's forgotten his own vows.

"Aaron," Aureilo says quietly; quietly enough that no one other than those gathered by the grooms can hear. "We aren't very good at being loved."

Reid jolts and snaps to life, repeating his hare's words. "We aren't very good at being loved," he says and his voice is heavy. "But you've shown us how we could be. I don't know if we can be the partners you wish us to be, but I do know we promise to try.

You walked into our lives and opened up endless possibilities and countless roads for us to travel. Somehow we managed to correctly choose the one that led us here, to this place, surrounded by these people and vowing our souls to be one. In my heart and in everything that I am, I see the future as becoming simple, the possibilities becoming singular and timeless. The wolfdog and the hare standing together, for now and forever.

Our life together holds over thirty-five hundred days within it and each one of those days holds memories that we will always cherish. In this moment, I promise to cherish the future days and memories that we face together, the good and the bad. I promise to grow old beside you, to come home to you always and I promise that every day that I open my eyes, I'll fall in love with you all over again because I still remember how that felt and I always will.

Most of all, until the end, I promise to love you without pause. Aureilo and I, as one singular being, in this moment vow to take you and Halaimon as our partners and our soul, throughout this life and into the next, for longer than we may live."

Emily and Jack are stepping forward with the rings next, and Rossi is only half paying attention because goddamn this is happening and he doesn't need an eidetic memory to look at the two men in front of him and see how far they've come.

He remembers Hotch, twenty-seven years old and cocky as a bull, rising through the ranks of the FBI with ridiculous ease. A brilliant profiler and friend but absolutely shit awful at anything requiring emotional commitment. Rossi had never expected this moment when he'd first held his hand out to the brand-new profiler and silently guessed that Hotshot Hotchner would be the making of their newly formed unit.

While he's been musing-and isn't that dangerously close to becoming the old man he's been threatening to turn into-they've exchanged rings, still holding hands as though neither is sure how to let go of the other anymore. It's Rossi's turn to step forward and loop the gold cord in his hands loosely around the two daemons, theoretically tying them together. It's a bit redundant really. There's more than a thin braid holding these two, and he can't see anything strong enough to pull them apart anytime soon.

"I pronounce you both married," he says quietly and there's more he should be saying, more he planned to say, but they've said it all and more at this point. "I guess you can probably now kiss your husband, although I wish you'd spare us the sight." He winks and Hotch chuckles. Reid just flushes.

But when the two men draw together and kiss for the first time as a married couple, even Rossi holds his breath.

The path they'd travelled to get here was thin and fraught with dangers and yet they'd still managed it.

He's never been prouder.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Jack wriggles in his seat nervously as Auntie Emily stands up and taps her glass. Arelys is a mouse in his pocket, shivering with fear. He knows what he has to do next but that doesn't mean he's not scared.

It's a surprise for his dads. He can't wait.

"I was going to give this tremendously long speech about all the things Aaron and Spencer have done collectively to annoy me over the years," Auntie Emily begins, and Jack stops a nervous giggle as everyone else laughs.

He thinks he might be sick. The soda Dad let him have is uncomfortable in his stomach, bubbling away. Spencer glances at him and reaches a hand down to take his, smiling at him. Jack smiles back. Both their hands are sweaty. Spencer must be nervous too, although Jack doesn't know why. He's already done his speech in front of all these people.

Aunt Emily is still talking. Jack stops fidgeting to listen for his cue. "But I figured you guys already know about Spence's bad jokes and Aaron's inability to tell when someone is telling a joke…"

Dad makes a noise, leaning forward. He's smiling. Jack likes it when he smiles. It makes his face crinkle up and his eyes smile too. Spencer always looks happier when that happens.

Auntie Emily shushes him, just like Dad when Jack is noisy when he's trying to watch the news. He looks just like Jack does as well, sinking back into his seat and frowning like he's in trouble. Jack really does giggle this time and Spencer squeezes his hand.

"…. So I thought I'd ask someone else to give the speech instead. Because we're not here today to celebrate the union of just two people we all love very much. We're here to celebrate the union of three. Jack?"

Everyone turns to look at Jack as he stands and almost trips from the shock of seeing so many faces looking at him. His face is burning like he's got a really bad sunburn and Arelys squeaks in terror and tries to burrow further into his pocket. He can feel her claws catching on the material.

He doesn't know how to make his voice loud enough that everyone can hear him, even though they've all gone very quiet. So he pretends he's his dad, shouting at a bad guy. He's found that pretending to be his dad helps a lot when he's scared.

Dad isn't scared of giving speeches. Jack knows. He's seen him on TV and he never looks sick or sunburned.

"Hi," he says, because he's completely forgotten what to say and Emily drops a hand to his shoulder and rubs it. He focuses on that and not on the soft laughter of the people at the table.

Dad is looking right at him, and he's not smiling but there's a look on his face that he usually gets when Jack does something really good at school, or Spencer says something in the low, quiet voice he uses when Dad and him are alone and he doesn't think Jack can hear. Jack looks right back and decides that he's just talking to his dad. His dad and Spencer. Because that's why they're here today.

Arelys scurries up his arm and there's a folded piece of paper in her mouth. He takes it. Emily's handwriting is clear and easy to read, especially after they've been practising the words secretly all week. He only has to look at it a little bit to remember what it says.

"I love my dad," he says after a deep breath and this time there are muffled awws from the people there. He ignores them. "He's always been there to help me, and I know he loves me no matter what. I didn't really understand what he meant when he told me that he was marrying Spencer because I thought being married was living with someone and loving them more than anything and maybe kissing sometimes."

He wrinkles his nose, not really wanting to think about that too much. Dad looks away and when he looks back, his cheeks are red and his mouth is doing that weird twitching thing that Aureilo's whiskers do right before he sneezes. Maybe he's nervous too.

"No ad-libbing," Emily says quietly after snorting. Jack doesn't know what that means, but he assumes it has something to do with adding the kissing bit. Alright, no talking about kissing. He's fine with that.

"I thought that Dad and Spencer do all those things anyway so why do they need to get married again. And then I asked Uncle Dave and he said that it wasn't just doing all those things – he said that getting married meant making a family. It meant that everyone would know that Dad and Spencer are in love and that they're both my parents and no one would be able to say otherwise."

He pauses for a bit because his voice is starting to squeak and the paper is shaking in his hands and Spencer is looking down at the table and not looking back at him. Dad is though, and he's smiling again.

"I still think it's silly," Jack adds, and Spencer looks up and raises an eyebrow in a very dad-like way. "Because we've always been a family, always, and I don't need my dads to get married to prove that to me. But I'm happy that they are, because I want everyone to know and to know how much I love both of them and how proud I am of them."

Emily wrote most of that bit. Jack would almost be embarrassed to read out something so sappy but it's true, really. And he likes that he finally gets to say this to them because they say it to him all the time.

He's smudged the last line and he can't remember it, so he makes it up. Nothing about kissing though, so Emily can't get mad. "Thanks for letting me be your son," he says to Spencer. "I hope you're proud of me too."

Spencer looks like he's about to cry. Jack hopes he's not going to get in trouble for making him cry. He did at school when he pulled Eliza's hair because Elliot said it was fake and he was dared to check.

"How could I not be?" Spencer says, just loud enough that they can hear him, and now a whole bunch of people are crying.

Weddings are stupid.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

JJ thinks that dancing is probably the oldest form of profiling. If you want to know someone intimately, just dance with them.

Take Morgan, for instance. He dances like he's waiting for something to happen. A faster beat, a friendly touch to the arm, something small or something life-changing. He dances like he's about to spin off into a different rhythm, ready to start the next stage of the dance before the first half is even close to being finished.

Rossi is slow and observant. If she missteps, which she does often, he's already guiding her and making her mistake simply another part of the dance. She's safe from mishap in his arms, pulled easily through the crowd as though he was born to lead another.

Hotch dances carefully. He's observant, sure, but he's stiff and awkward. He knows all the steps, he knows all the theory, but he's only ever learnt them with one other. With anyone else, he's lost.

Will leads without leading. A laugh, a smile, a shyly ducked gaze. His attention is fully on her the whole time and she's never felt more cherished. If she goes, he follows, but he does so in a way that gives the appearance that he's still the one in control. She doesn't mind. She's happy to lead or follow him, so long as he doesn't go somewhere where she can't.

And Spence.

Her Spence. Her colleague, but mostly her friend. Sometimes she catches him watching her in the office and she wonders if he knows just exactly how much she loves him.

When she dances with him on this night, she knows he does.

He dances with careless abandon and leads easily, strangely confident on the floor. He has none of Hotch's stiffness or Rossi's slow care. There's not a trace of Morgan in his steps, waiting for something that might never arrive. He dances in the here and now and there's a smile in his eyes and his mouth and his touch that makes her smile in return.

His hand on her side says _friend_ and the way his face softens when he looks at her says _loved_ but when he dances alone with Hotch in the centre of the floor, every part of him is lined with the promise of forever.

If she cries at the sight it's okay, because Garcia has long given up on her makeup and Rossi's cheeks are suspiciously red.

Emily hugs JJ once as the newlyweds' dance comes to a close and her makeup is perfect, her eyes dry, but JJ doesn't need to dance with Emily to profile her.

If she cries, she won't let any of them see.

Morgan watches silently and unlike them he's not bawling, but there's a hunger in his face that makes her own heart ache, and she hopes that they all in the end get what they've been waiting for.

But for now she just enjoys that two of them have.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Tod finds her first.

Alex is nursing a glass of champagne and standing on the outskirts at the wedding of two team members she'd walked away from when Tod barks a short greeting and vanishes from her side. She follows curiously, the people around her either strangers or awkward enough with her that they may as well of been.

Her old team is on the dance floor, and while Alex knows that if she was to walk out there and offer her arm to any one of them they'd take it, she can't help but feel like she's burnt that particular bridge. It's a lonely feeling.

She finds Tod greeting a fellow daemon with solemn regard, dipping his head in respect with his eyes glowing happily. She's not as quick to place the name of the woman sitting by the side of the scruffy cheetah but when she turns her head to smile crookedly at Alex with a familiar gleam in her eyes, Alex knows her immediately.

"Dr. Reid," Alex says, holding out her hand. "I'm Alex Blake. It's lovely to be able to put a face to the name, Spencer speaks of you often."

Diana beams at the mention of her son and gestures to the seat next to her. Alex takes it gratefully, turning slightly to see if she can spot the younger Reid in the throng of dancers.

"He's mentioned you many times in his letters," Diana says quietly, her hand falling down to rest on her daemon's sleek head, tracing the spots with thin fingers. Her skin is pale, paper thin and stretched over fragile bones. Alex can see why Spencer worries about her so much. "He says you're the only person to have ever beaten him at his crossword puzzles. He was so proud to have been beaten."

She looks like she could fade away in an instant and be borne away by the breeze. It reminds Alex of her mother, before the end.

"He was very tired that day," Alex says with a laugh. "I think he let me win."

Diana shakes her head with an adamantly stubborn look in her eyes that Alex recognises from her son as well. "Spencer wouldn't allow you to win. He values the struggle to gain what you desire much more than the actual victory. In most things, anyway."

Her eyes fall on a spot in the crowd and when Alex follows her gaze, Spencer is there holding Jack in the air and laughing. Aureilo bounds at his feet, almost dancing himself. Alex suspects that no matter where Reid had been standing, Diana would have found him with ease.

"He's happy," Alex says. Reid puts Jack down and the boy follows the hare from the dancefloor, face flushed and eyes glowing. "If you ever worry about him… you should know that. He's happy, and loved by so many. I know what it's like to worry over a child."

"You never really stop worrying about them, do you?" Diana replies, and her eyes are locked now on Alex. "No matter how far they go from you… or how long they've been gone for."

Alex thinks of Ethan and she sees Diana's face soften, a knowing look in her eyes. She's not overly surprised. Reid had to have inherited his gifts from somewhere and she's always had a suspicion it wasn't from his father. No clever person could walk away from a person as brimming with potential as Reid.

Except he had. And so had Alex, in a way. What did that say about them?

She opens her mouth to say something, but the cheetah chirrs. There's a shriek of barely contained excitement nearby and Diana laughs. "Excuse me," the older woman says as she stands. "But I believe it's time I danced with my grandson. And I believe there is someone wishing a dance with you as well."

Alex looks and Reid and Jack are heading towards them. Jack is careful with Diana, sliding to a stop in front of her and holding out his arm, taking her's as though she's made of spun glass and leading her towards the dancefloor. He's beaming proudly, gloriously excited to show off his new grandmother to everyone there.

Reid watches them go then turns to Alex. "You've met Mom," he says with a strained smile, looking nervous. Alex touches his arm reassuringly.

"Funny," she says to him. "But I feel like I met her a long time ago."

When Reid leads her to the dance-floor and lays his hand on her waist, the others make way for them effortlessly, as though she'd never left.

She's beginning to suspect that this is the kind of family you don't just get to walk away from.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

The newlyweds have departed, bless them. JJ and Will are gone, taking home the over-excited Henry. Jessica and Jack are gone too and Garcia doesn't envy Jessica the chore of getting that bundle of hyperactivity to sleep tonight, especially after seeing the amount of sweets and cake Reid had been slipping him every time Hotch looked away. Morgan is on the drunker side of smashed and Garcia herself is starting to feel the effects of the delicious champagne. Her thoughts are racing, rambling, and she can't work out if she's giddy with alcohol or life or love or just everything.

But she's not quite ready to spill herself and her drunk-but-still-sexy Morgan into a taxi and head home, not yet. Especially not when that would somehow involve her wrangling a boxer who appears to have forgot how to coordinate all four long legs at the same time.

Besides. She's still, rightfully, a little emotional and she doesn't want to get all weepy in the taxi thinking of Hotch cutting the ridiculously cute cake that Emily and JJ had somehow found, the icing all swirly and white and patterned with hares that you could only see if you held them to the light and squinted sideways; or thinking of the way Reid would catch sight of his reflection in the glass of Rossi's sliding door occasionally and pause, his hand coming up to trace the outline of the gold wolf on his heart and his face a soppy smile.

Nope. Nosirrie. She's not going to think of those things at all because she's already completely ruined her makeup and Emily still somehow looks gorgeous even though she's absolutely plastered and barefoot on the grass, her dress hiked up around her knees as she laughs and chases Morgan, threatening him with the lacy bow she'd stolen from somewhere.

She's not going to think of Reid and Hotch beginning their lives together because it hurts but in a good way and her eyes are already gritty with the amount of crying she's done tonight.

Morgan seems to finally have grown tired of the awkward dodging he's doing and scoops Emily up in his arms, dumping both of them onto the grass. He laughs, Emily shrieks and Sergio joins in with a joyful yowling that's probably the most outrageously odd thing Garcia has ever seen the dignified Prentiss do in all the years she's known her.

Garcia flinches, thinking of grass stains on a silky dress and muddy knees but then Emily starts howling with laughter and Naemaria trips over Sergio and they both fall in a heap and she can't help but join in.

The other guests are gone, it's just them and Rossi and the night is cool enough to nip at exposed shoulders.

It's perfect.

Garcia joins them on the grass and doesn't even care that it's thick with dew and that the sky is going to lighten soon. Rossi eventually comes over and doesn't say anything, just sits next to them, sprawling with a casualness that defies his dignified age.

They stop laughing and they don't talk and they stay there until the sun paints the sky with an icy blue dawn and they're all exhausted and sober and it's absolutely perfect.

And Garcia knows that all things end, eventually but she'll always have this.

They all will.


	3. The Idea of Charlie

**Chapter Three: The idea of Charlie**

 ** _It starts off very simply. It's a pity it doesn't stay that way._**

 **.**

 **.**

The idea of Charlie starts very simply.

Hotch wakes up on the second morning of their honeymoon and finds his partner _(husband)_ standing by the window watching the sunrise. It's an odd, frozen point in time, and the first thing Hotch realizes is how clichéd it is.

The second thing he realizes is that the man is naked; angles and planes outlined by the glow of the sun, and he now belongs solely to Aaron. There's a silver band around his left ring finger to say so.

Silver because neither of them have the heart to wear gold anymore, not when they've seen so much gold in their lives already.

It doesn't take long to convince Spencer to allow him to celebrate their union.

It might not be the best time for this conversation. In fact, it's almost certainly not, but as Hotch moves slowly and carefully within his husband in just the right way to make him gasp, it's never felt more appropriate.

"I love you," he says once and there's a snigger from the other side of the room that sounds suspiciously like Aureilo.

"Obviously," Spencer says with a snort. He twitches slightly in Hotch's grip and readjusts. "Bit late to say otherwise now."

He presses his mouth against the back of Spencer's neck and mouths the next words into the warm skin against his lips.

"I want a child with you."

He's not sure if the shocked noise Spencer makes is terror or pleasure, but he comes anyway.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Maybe the unsub was adopted," Morgan suggests, leaning over the casefile and thoughtfully tapping at it with his pen.

"Unlikely," Reid snaps quickly. Too quickly. JJ glances up at him, hearing a whine to his voice that he only ever gets when he's obsessing over something.

"His mother stated she couldn't have children. They said he was a miracle. It's possible they kept it from him and thought we wouldn't find out, Reid – we should consider…"

Reid stands, and Aureilo scampers out from under his feet. His voice is a snarl. "Both his parents work in law enforcement – high risk jobs. No adoption agency is going to give a kid to parents who have a high statistical probability of dying every time they go into work."

Silence in the room, and Kailo murmurs something under his breath that sounds like, "Oh boy."

For a second, Hotch looks guilty.

"Perhaps they used a surrogate," Rossi says, and this time Reid does flinch.

She can't really tell with the way Hotch's face just… is… but his expression is almost what she'd call triumphant. Reid walks out, muttering something about coffee.

"What was that?" Morgan asks slowly.

Kate appears, expression is concerned. "So err… Reid just pelted past me like he had hounds on his heels. Case not going well?" There's a clatter of paws and a whiskery otter face bobs in the doorway behind her, his dark sleek fur framing round button eyes.

They all look to Hotch. Hotch looks to JJ. JJ sighs.

She really misses Emily.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

JJ follows him and leans against the cupboard of the kitchenette, trying to look innocent. He doesn't give her the chance.

"Hotch wants another kid," he says, closing his eyes for a long moment as all of the reasons why it can't happen flicker through his mind.

She's quiet. "And I'm guessing you're not upset because he has a misunderstanding of basic human anatomy?"

"He wants a child from… he wants my child."

The way she's looking at him now almost suggests that he's missed something obvious, like he's the one making the mistake here.

"He always has," she says finally, and his heart breaks just a little.

It's the one thing Spencer can't give him.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

There's really no delicate way to prepare someone for this conversation.

JJ goes home, tucks Henry into bed, does the dishes, thinks about everything that led her to this moment, and then sits down next to her husband.

"Something wrong?" he asks, lowering his book and looking at her with concern lining his face. Mia raises her head and narrows brown eyes at her and Kailo both.

She lays a hand on her stomach and thinks of the child they'd lost. She leans against his side and thinks about the love in his eyes.

She wants to do this. But she needs him to understand why.

"I want to be a surrogate for Spence."

JJ invites them over for dinner. Hotch doesn't need to be a profiler to know something is up. If her nervousness isn't a dead giveaway, the way that Mia spends the entire time staring at Hal intently absolutely is.

Aureilo presses tightly against the side of Reid's chair and Reid flicks him beans when JJ isn't looking. Will's gaze doesn't lift from his dinner. Hotch's attempts at small-talk fall on deaf ears.

It's more nerve-wracking than dinners with Elizabeth Prentiss, back in his security detail days.

He has a mouthful of meatloaf when JJ blurts out, "If you guys need a surrogate, I'd be happy to help," and he ends up choking and almost spitting the food back into his plate. Reid's fork clatters against the table. Hotch doesn't look at him because if his own emotions are any indication, he's not going to be able to look at his husband's face without either laughing or crying.

"What?" Reid says stupidly, and Hotch does look at him then. He's gone white except for the shadows under his eyes, and Hotch wonders if he should pat him on the shoulder or hand him a glass of water before he passes out.

Will looks up to see their faces and starts laughing helplessly.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

She walks into her office one morning, weeks after the disastrous dinner, and Reid is sitting there.

"You do realize what you're offering don't you?" he says and she notes that Aureilo isn't here. He came alone.

"Yes," she says simply.

"Aaron wants the child to be mine. My genes aren't exactly…" He pauses, and in that pause is all the pain he's struggling to hide.

She takes his hand and sits next to him, perched on the side of the desk with her knees against his. "You're my friend, my family," she tells him firmly. "And whatever decision you make, I'm here for you. But let me tell you, no matter what happens with this child if you decide to go ahead with it, Aaron will love it unconditionally. So will you, and Jack. And there is absolutely nothing that can change that."

His hand shakes. "Can I do this?" Reid murmurs. "Can I give it everything it needs? I don't… I don't know if I can be… enough."

It's the simplest thing in the world to lean down and brush her lips against his forehead, pulling him close. She isn't lying. He's family, and he always has been.

She doesn't need to lie with what she says next either.

"You'll be everything you need to be and more," she assures him, his breath warm against her cheek. "But most of all, you won't be alone with this."

He's not his parents.

Either of them.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Hotch wakes up and there's two wide hazel eyes hovering above him.

It's a very close thing, but he manages not to punch Spencer out of panicked reflex.

"What are you _doing_?" he wheezes instead, hand twitching violently towards his partner's face. He manages to turn it into a loving touch to Spencer's ear, barely.

"Yes," Spencer breathes, and he's close enough that their noses brush. Hotch is really going to have to do something about Reid's caffeine intake. This is entirely on the wrong side of unsettling. "The answer is yes."

Hotch isn't quite sure what he's saying yes to. He has a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with the argument they'd been having before they'd gone to bed about how to correctly pronounce the word 'lambaste'.

Then he realizes.

"I love you," he says finally, and Reid smiles.

"I can't believe they let you two carry weapons," Aureilo grumbles, Hal sniggering along.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"It's not too late to back out," Reid says, just once, as they sit in the waiting room of the Washington Fertility Centre.

They all look at him. Hotch half expects him to blush but all the blood has drained from his face and he doesn't look at all capable of the emotion anymore. It's a little concerning.

But not surprising. Hotch himself isn't feeling entirely composed about the coming process.

Strangely, JJ looks calm.

"I'm fine, Spence," she says, and touches his knee.

He nods and closes his eyes, breathing quickly.

"We feel sick," groans Aureilo, burying his head into the thick fur of Hal's chest and trembling.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

JJ's no stranger to Reid in a panic. After all, he's been babysitting Henry for years and she's fielded enough calls from him in the middle of the night freaking out about the minutest things that she's pretty sure she can handle whatever he throws at her during her pregnancy.

And she's right. He calculates her diet down to the last calorie and if he wanders up to her desk looking innocent and 'casually' mentions one more baby book he 'happened' to glance at then she's probably going to glue him to his keyboard. But she can handle it.

She can even handle the fluffy brown shadow she's gained in the form of Aureilo. He sticks so close to her heels from the moment she walks into the Bureau to the moment she leaves that she almost starts looking around for him when she wakes up in the morning.

This is all expected.

What she doesn't expect is Hotch.

"JJ, you and Reid stay here and work on the geographical profile," he says firmly, two months into her pregnancy.

Which wouldn't have been odd at all except this is the fourth case in a row where she hasn't left the station, and even Reid's company is starting to grate. _Especially_ Reid's company.

"You're sending Kate with Morgan? Hotch, I'm more qualified for this." She tries to keep the snap out of her voice, but by the way Morgan stills nervously she doesn't quite manage it.

"I would like to assist Dr. Reid with the geographical profile," Kate says quickly, eyes flickering between the two profilers. "I have some ideas I'd like to run over with him."

Reid looks away.

"My choice is final," Hotch says, and JJ seethes silently.

Two weeks later she doesn't give him a choice and when he sees her in her FBI vest, he pales.

"You can't be here," he says, glancing at the building they're about to enter. For a moment, she doubts herself. He looks truly concerned.

Then he glances at her stomach, and she's angry again.

"You didn't keep me out of the field with Henry," she tells him warningly. "If this is a problem, you need to bring it to me so we can discuss it. I'm pregnant, Hotch. Not broken. And I'm going to do my job."

She's not letting her team go in there without her.

He doesn't say another word but he pairs her with Rossi instead of himself and she knows he's either furious or terrified, although his face displays neither.

Rossi glances at her as they move towards the door, nodding grimly. Then he looks down further.

"Since when do you make hard-entries?" he says, and for a second she thinks he's talking to her.

"Complacency is the death of a well-structured mind," Aureilo says back, hopping up-wearing his _vest_ , good god, that's a first-and glaring at them both with an expression that suggests that if they try to stop him from coming, he's going to find his own way in. "I'm trying new things."

"How about we try not alerting the unsub to our position?" Hal snaps, appearing like a shadow at Aureilo's side and lowering her head dangerously.

JJ meets her eyes and she doesn't need words to know that this is Hotch's compromise.

She enters the building with the hare at her back and the wolf at her side and she'll never admit how safe it feels.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

JJ looks pissed.

Reid freezes as the angry looking profiler storms towards his desk. Her eyes are dark shadows, heavily lidded with the by-products of a sleepless night. He tries to smile but her scowl deepens.

He can't help but trail his gaze down to her abdomen where her-no, their… _his_ …-child is busy developing cognitive functions.

She growls. It's almost a snarl. He sinks into his chair, and Kate laughs nervously.

"You," she says, jabbing her finger into his shoulder.

"Me," he repeats, twitching away.

"Just because you can substitute on nothing but rainbows and coffee, doesn't mean the rest of us don't need our sleep," she continues, and he's officially lost track of the thread of this conversation.

Luckily, Kate is a little more aware than he is. She leans forward and her mouth forms a wide O of excitement that Reid's only ever seen on woman around babies and children faced with injections. "Is the baby kicking already?" she gasps, and something in his stomach twists and threatens to upset the chocolate muffin he'd split with Aureilo this morning. "It's only fourteen weeks! Active little bugger."

JJ's eyes narrow, and Reid begins to look around for salvation. Morgan steps into the bullpen, takes one look at the pleading in Reid's eyes and the aura of suppressed rage around JJ, and promptly walks straight back out again.

Some partner he is.

"Obviously," JJ says carefully, enunciating each word slowly through gritted teeth, "This child has inherited the night-owl tendencies of the idiot-genius who fathered it, which means I get to look forward to the next five months of it starting up a dance club every night at ten on the dot."

Aureilo shuffles out from under the desk and Reid sighs in relief. His hare has always been brilliant at calming angry people down. He's a natural conversationalist.

"I doubt it's dancing," Aureilo says cheerily. "Spencer's not much of a dancer. Probably just pacing and thinking really intently about maps."

His hare is an asshole.

"Sorry," Reid mumbles weakly, because what else can he say?

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

It's a boy.

The sonographer turns and smiles with the kind of fake expression you wear when you're paid to smile from nine to five, and she tells the four of them that it's a boy.

A son. A brother for Jack.

A boy with his father's hazel eyes and crooked smile. Hotch doesn't let it show, but he knows that JJ can see the happiness he's hiding anyway because she ducks her head away from them and grins.

Reid just looks overwhelmed. Hotch isn't worried because Hal is wagging her tail with Kailo on her nose and Aureilo is almost quivering with excitement against her front legs.

Suddenly, it all feels very real.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Michael is a good name," JJ says, leaning back in the chair with an audible groan. "It's simple. Hotch, you like simple."

Hotch frowns at her from his own seat across the room. Spencer is standing with his eyes darting across the titles on the bookshelves of their living room. The faint sounds of children giggling float down the hall, Will's deeper baritone cutting in as he instructs them in the finer points of car racing. "Who said I like simple?"

JJ's narrow eyebrows lift and her mouth twitches. "You named your son Jack."

"In 2005 Michael Bruce Ross was executed by the state of Connecticut for the rape and murders of eight girls and women," Spencer announces. His gaze doesn't leave the books. They stare at him. "There was also Michael Gargiulo, who may have murdered up to ten women and was dubbed 'The Chiller Killer' by - what?"

"Is that really how you're going to rule out names?" JJ asks incredulously. Spencer shrugs and looks lost, turning to Hotch for help.

Hotch tries not to laugh at his hapless husband. "Spencer… we have a son named Jack. I think avoiding names with macabre history is a little bit like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted."

"Oh. Right." Spencer looks down at his shoes.

"I also like Charlie," JJ says, cutting through the awkward silence.

Hotch likes Charlie too. "Charlie is a good name." They wait. Reid bites at his lip, clearly barely restraining himself. Hotch takes pity on him. "Spencer?"

"Manson," whispers Reid.

JJ covers her face so they can't see her smile.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

The child is a visible shape to her stomach when Hotch finally snaps, his tightly-leashed control on his over-protectiveness failing. She supposes that she should be thankful it took him this long. She has a slight suspicion that it was Reid who held him back.

"Are you here as my boss, as my friend, or as a father?" she asks when she looks up to find him standing in the doorway to her office looking as sheepish as she's ever seen him.

"All of the above?" he tries. He takes a seat and swallows nervously. She waits. "You're an exemplary agent, JJ. And I find myself in the difficult position of being torn between wanting what's best for you, what's best for the team, or what's best for myself."

"Aaron…" She's frozen and waiting for the words she knows are coming. Kailo is stock-still against her neck, listening.

"No, please hear me out. I know that it's still another three weeks until you went on leave with Henry, and that you were determined that this wouldn't change anything to do with our work. You've been amazing in that sense. This isn't a failure on your behalf at all."

"But you want me out of the field."

"No. I want you in the field, at our sides as always. I want to know you have our backs because I need every one of my team members to do our jobs. But I can't do mine with you out there – I can't disassociate, JJ. This is my failing. Every time you step out into the field, my focus is one hundred percent on you to the detriment of the team."

"Okay," she says, cutting him off. He blinks, startled. "It's fine, Hotch. But I won't stay behind. I fly out to cases with you and I stay at the station. One of us has to practise doing geographical profiles anyway for when Charlie is born and Spence takes his leave."

He nods slowly. "Thank you." There's a long moment when he pauses as though he's about to continue talking, but instead he stands and brushes his hands across the front of his trouser legs, smoothing the creases down. "I apologise for being overbearing. I'm told I can be."

It's probably not the most professional reaction to have but she stands and steps around the desk, hugging him before he can pull away. The baby gets between them and he tics back and looks down at him again, mouth twitching.

"It's okay to be scared, Aaron. You weren't there with Jack for most of it – this is as nerve-wracking for you as it is for Reid." She decides to be kind. "I wouldn't call you overbearing…"

Aureilo is under her chair snoozing, hidden by the desk, and she'd forgotten he was there. So has Aaron apparently, judging by the way he jumps when the hare's voice cuts into their conversation.

"I would. And I do. Often. So does Reid. And Rossi. Actually, basically everyone does."

Hotch laughs, a real laugh, and she can't help but join in.

She pushes her misgivings aside. Not long now. Maybe this will all turn out just fine.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

They all have ghosts. Nightmares. Horrors that haunt them. Reid's is Hankel and the siren call of a clear vial and blessed nothingness. Emily has-had-Doyle. Aaron has dreams of a wolf chasing a hare through a forest and falling far enough behind that the hare becomes nothing but a whisper. On these nights, he wakes and holds Reid close and does everything but let himself fall apart.

JJ's ghost is Tivon Askari and the child she'd lost and told no one about, before Charlie was even a thought.

She's been acting strange, and Reid knows he can help her, he knows he can do this for his friend, but she pushes him away and the problem with loving profilers is that they know exactly where to strike to cripple you.

"Stop being you," she says first and he takes those words and holds them against his heart to repeat back to himself endlessly on the nights when his arm itches and his brain burns with the knowledge of his own weaknesses.

Then she hits him again.

"I was pregnant."

Was. He can't help with this.

In fact, he's probably made this worse.

The tears in her eyes is her accusation, the swell of her belly is his betrayal, and he does the worst thing possible.

He walks away.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Reid comes back, he'll always come back she knows, but this time he cringes as he does so.

He's heavier now than he was when she met him. At some point, he's put on enough weight that she can't see the framework of his bones anymore and his hair isn't long enough to hang into his eyes like it used to.

But now sees the shadow of the boy he once was in his posture.

Gone is the confident, self-assured man of the past few years and in his place stands the skinny twenty-two-year-old Jason Gideon shoved out of his office and into their lives that day.

She did this.

He doesn't meet her eyes. "Hey, uh, I couldn't find that word you asked for, but I also didn't want it to be Tivon Askari anymore, so I called Emily…. I didn't tell her anything. I just asked her to pull any extra background Intel she could."

"Spence…" she says and he steps back.

Then he straightens and comes back to himself. That's the difference between the boy and the man; the man knows how to come back when the boy never did. "You lost a child, Jennifer. Why didn't you tell me? Why go through that alone?" He looks at her belly as he talks, at Charlie, and the horror is plain to see on his face.

"Because I didn't know what to say," she answers. "And I knew if I told you, you'd never agree to let me have Charlie for you."

His throat moves as he swallows.

He'll always come back, but he's not toothless anymore.

"No I wouldn't have," he says. "But that would have been my choice. And you owed it to me to make that choice with all pertinent information. You've betrayed my trust."

"I'm sorry." It's too much. It's not enough.

"So am I." He turns away.

She lets him go. They lose something in that moment.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Just over a month to go," Will says softly, laying down on the bed next to her and laying a hand on her stomach. "Are you scared, _cher_?"

She curls as close to him as she can with the baby a barrier between them. There's lines around his eyes that weren't there eight months ago. She knows that she very likely has her own.

Neither of them regret them.

"Henry was a gentleman," she teases, reaching her hand down to trail along Mia's silky ears. Will shivers at the touch, and tucks his face against her shoulder. "And Reid's so polite, I can't imagine any kid of his being any different. He'll probably come out apologising for causing a bother."

Will laughs against her skin. His breath is warm but there's a resignation to the sound. "Are you going to be okay? Giving him away?"

That hurts. She's been trying not to think about that bit. Something sharp twinges in her chest, and the baby shifts in reaction to that, stretching out and curling back. Damn kid is long. She can almost feel his heels on her ribs.

"We knew what we were doing when we agreed to this, Will," she says firmly, more for her own sake than his. "And besides… it's not like he's going far. Henry and Jack are practically attached at the hip since Rossi bought Jack that new game."

"That's not the point." His voice is soft. That's the bit that breaks her.

Seconds later, she's sobbing in his arms in a way that she'll never, ever admit to Spence. Will holds her close, making soothing noises into her hair, his heart a steady beat against her ear as she shatters, just a little bit.

Spence's words haunt her. _"You lost a child, Jennifer. Why didn't you tell me? Why go through that alone?"_

Because she thought she was stronger than this; thought she was stronger than making it to the last month and suddenly burning with the consuming desire to scream at them that she can't do this, can't give this child up. It's a bizarre, furious feeling and she's savagely horrified by the idea that she can hurt them like she was hurt. She's also tempted.

She's not the person she thought she was.

"You know," Will says quietly, taking a deep breath. "No matter what happens, we're never losing this baby, love. You know we aren't. We're going to be there to see him grow into the wonderful person he's going to be. They're our family, Jen. All of them. Always."

She nods and holds that thought close, conscious of the gently shifting child in her belly. The one that lives, still. Unlike hers. Not Henry's brother, not really, but his friend.

Still family. No matter what. It's a small comfort.

She hopes that when the time comes, it's enough.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

They're halfway through a case when it happens. Hotch has gone ahead, gone alone, chasing a bogeyman from nightmares. A ghost come to life. With how haunted they all are, Reid should have known it could only end badly.

"I think Hotch and Hal are more than this Mr. Scratch can handle," Rossi had joked earlier that day. "Maybe they're what nightmares have nightmares of."

Reid had laughed, but he didn't really find it funny. One of them going into danger alone had long ago ceased to be amusing, if it had ever been.

Reid's hand is on the handle of the car door when a burst of trepidation through his bond with Aureilo almost floors him. His startled noise alerts Rossi and Eris, who peer out at him through the window.

"JJ," Reid says by way of explanation, taking two hesitant steps away from the car and freezing.

JJ or Hotch.

The plain silver band on his hand catches the light like a promise.

Rossi winds the window door and leans out. "Go," he snaps, flicking his head. "Hotch is fine, it's routine. We'll go pick him and the Doctor up and we'll meet you, either here or the hospital."

Reid nods and runs, his mind whirling and thoughts of Hotch forgotten as he bolts towards the elevators. _Thirty-seven weeks, it's too early. She can't be in labour…_

But he knows the statistics.

His phone rings and he digs it out of his pocket and glances at the screen. _P. Garcia calling._ His heart sinks.

It's too early.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Where's Hotch?"

JJ is staring at him with wide-eyed fear on her face, pain lining her mouth. Reid's knuckles tighten on the wheel.

"His phone is still ringing out," Garcia says from the seat next to JJ, leaning forward so the seatbelt strains against her shoulder. "He's probably fine. Maybe he left it in the car."

JJ whimpers slightly, very slightly, and Aureilo spins in the passenger seat to look around at her. His ear is tight against his back, nostrils flaring. Kailo is perched on his head in what should be a comical fashion but the butterfly's wings are still, and Reid can hear him whispering something very softly.

"Ring Rossi," JJ says, gritting her teeth. "Get hold of him. Tell him that Aaron better meet us at the hospital or else. Remind him that I carry a weapon."

Garcia taps at her phone. "Well, if he doesn't get here in time, Reid can always go in with you," she says with a wide smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Oh… Rossi's is ringing out too."

Reid feels sick.

His wedding band glints accusingly.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Will gets there first.

He stops by Reid's arm, looking around. "Where's Aaron?" Mia lowers her nose to snuff at Aureilo carefully. The hare leans into the touch, quivering with tension.

"I don't know," Reid hisses, his voice snapping. His phone burns a hole through his pocket, mocking him with its silence. "He's on a case, I think. He's not answering. They're not answering."

Will's a cop. Reid sees the exact moment he switches from concerned husband to officer, his face settling into the same soothing expression that they all use when trying to calm down families and friends. Victims.

He touches Reid's arm. "Well you better get in there then," he says firmly and Reid blanches.

"But… what?" he stammers. "JJ didn't agree to that. She said Aaron. Aaron's not here. It has to be you. Not me, I didn't, I don't…"

Will raises an eyebrow and Reid is conscious of Garcia watching them with one hand over her mouth and the other resting on Tupelo's glossy back. "Oh?" Will says. "Because I distinctly remember Jen being perfectly fine with you being in there, it was you who was scared. But you don't get to be scared now, Spencer. Aaron's not here, you are, and that's your son and your best friend in there and they both need you to be a Daddy right now."

Reid stares at him.

The fear rears one last time before settling into a cool calm. Aureilo closes his eyes, and nods.

"Okay," Reid says, pushing all thoughts of Aaron and silent phones out of his mind. JJ first.

JJ comes first. At this moment, JJ comes first.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Would you like to hold her while we check Mom?" the nurse says kindly, and before Reid can say anything, he has an armful of tightly wrapped, slimy baby.

He blinks down at her and she scrunches her face angrily. He's dimly aware of JJ saying something and the nurses talking.

She's tiny. She's tiny and fragile and _holy shit she's a little person, a real person, there's a person inside that wonky skull and strangely wrinkled skin._

"She?" Aureilo says, standing with his paws resting on Reid's knee to try and get a better look. Reid lowers himself carefully, sitting cross-legged so the hare can scramble into his lap. "Not a Charlie, then."

Aaron isn't here.

But their daughter is. And she's perfect.

They take her away and there are tests, endless tests, and Aaron still isn't there. Rossi's voice is audible once but it floats away from the room without entering and Reid doesn't follow because he knows what it means if they're avoiding him.

"Where's…" JJ murmurs groggily, her eyes slipping shut, and he doesn't know if she's asking about Aaron or the baby.

He doesn't answer because he only knows the answer to one of those questions and if he starts talking about tests and NICU he's going to babble about complications and sepsis and the possibility of cerebral palsy in premature births even though their daughter is a healthy weight and breathing fine, so far.

Because he looks calm but he's panicking and he doesn't want her to see that but he can't walk away from her while the ground moves so unsteadily under his feet.

Then they bring her back and they smile and say things like lucky and healthy and he doesn't feel lucky at all.

Will comes in and he stands by JJ as she holds their daughter. Reid stands back.

Will's eyes are on him. There's a darkness in them that promises loss. Reid looks in them and sees empty space in the room, where Aaron should be.

He slips out and goes to find Rossi.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He finds Aaron, and he's broken.

He's sitting on the side of a hospital bed with a mask on his face and his head hung low. Rossi stands by his side and Reid hangs by the door and doesn't say anything, not at first.

Hal stares at him and her hackles are partly raised. Even through the overwhelming scent of bleach and hospital, Reid can detect the sage on them. He doesn't need to be a genius to guess what's happened.

"It's a girl," he says quietly, eventually, and Aaron looks up and _shudders_ when he sees him. Reid wonders what he saw, and knows he'll never ask. "We have a daughter."

"I fucked up," Aaron says with the voice of a victim. "He got the jump on me, love, I couldn't stop him. I… he made me _see_ things."

He's calling him pet names, and that's what pulls Reid into the hospital room. Not the bruising on his face or the strange, still anxiety that's settled on Rossi's shoulders, but the pet name. Because he's calling him that to cling to him and Reid knows that tonight Aaron faced losing them.

"She's perfect," he says firmly.

Aaron hesitates and then nods.

Reid's determined that they remember today for their daughter and not for a nightmare.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Reid is holding her when it happens.

He's distracted, thinking about Aaron and the case and everything that drives them apart. He's thinking of the worry lines on Rossi's forehead and the exhausted cast to JJ's face, and most of all he's thinking of the haunted expression Aaron had worn when he had finally dropped in to see them before the nurses had led him away.

He doesn't notice first at all – Aaron does.

He walks in with both daemons at his heels, glancing over at the sleeping JJ before turning to Reid and their newborn daughter. Reid stares at him, trying to communicate everything he's feeling without having to speak, not wanting to disturb any of the sleeping forms in the room. Aaron doesn't seem to notice. The darkness clears and he smiles, his expression overawed.

Charlie wiggles slightly in his arms and he looks down and sees what Aaron is looking at.

Her hand is thrown back over her head and on her chest lies a tiny brown blur of fur; sleek with slight, narrow ears laid back tightly against her back. He breathes slowly, reverently.

In that moment he knows what it's like to fall completely and irrevocably in love with some small being and to be completely beholden to that feeling. No matter what happens in the future, no matter what paths they take, he knows that he'll always have this second, this instant.

He'll always be her dad.

Aureilo and Hal walk over; Hal leaning her great head on his lap with her nose barely touching the leveret daemon, and Aureilo standing on his hind legs to rest his front paws on Reid's knee, whiskers twitching busily.

"He has your eyes," Hal teases Aureilo, tail thumping quickly against the floor.

Aaron kneels next to them and wraps his arms around Reid's shoulder, his lips brushing against the shell of Reid's ear. "What's his name?" he asks the daemons, and Reid can feel his mouth shaping into a strained smile.

"Taithleach," Hal answers after a quick glance at Aureilo, who nods. "We knew it from the beginning. It just feels right."

"You know, JJ was onto something. Charlie still sounds right as well," Hotch says, reaching his hand down and tucking a single finger into the baby's tiny fist. Her mouth moves, hand clenching slightly. "She looks like a Charlie. Hi Charlie. I'm your Daddy."

His voice is soft and longing in a way that melts away Reid's worries and fears, even just temporarily.

"We love her," Aureilo whispers, sounding shocked. "We thought we wouldn't, not right away, but we do."

A soft laugh from the bed and they look up to see JJ grinning tiredly at them.

"I told you you'd be fantastic," she says.

And they are.


	4. Our Mistakes

**Chapter Four: Our Mistakes**

 ** _In which Jack makes a number of wrong decisions for all the right reasons, and in doing so learns that there's so much more to his parents than he ever expected._**

 **.**

 **.**

 _"_ _It always gave me a peculiar feeling to catch a glimpse of my parents' lives before I was born."_

― **Robert Drewe** , **_The Shark Net_**

 ** _._**

Aaron Hotchner has a temper.

Jack knows this. He's rarely seen it. When his parents fight, it's in low, hushed tones and the words rarely turn venomous. Pa is an effective barrier against the type of furious anger that Jack knows his Dad is capable of – it's hard to look at Pa with his placid expressions and reproachful eyes and continue to stay mad. Not to mention Dad's usual ironclad control over his emotions.

Jack suspects that he's inherited his temper from his Dad.

Unfortunately, he hasn't quite mastered the control part yet.

"Oi, Hotchner," someone calls as he and Arelys are cutting through the crowds of students to reach the school gates. He doesn't turn. He knows that voice. Arelys stands on her hind legs, ears flat against her head and fur bristling.

"Hobb," Jack greets him, turning and smiling coolly. Fantastic. The other boy smirks, his daemon flickering through several canine forms before settling on a gold-coated dingo. Seventeen and his daemon hasn't settled yet. Jack contemplates using that against him if he starts up on Arelys being a jackrabbit again.

Jack prefers to fight with words. It's harder to lose his temper that way.

"Heard something interesting," Hobb says cheerfully, his smile loose and relaxed. "Hey man, I've been giving you a hard time. I didn't know, alright. I'm sorry."

Jack stares at him. "Um… thank you?"

 _What the hell?_

A sweaty hand is pushed towards him as though waiting to shake. "Yeah. I mean, I've been giving you a hard time about being a bit of a bitch, but hey. What can you expect when your dad's a faggot?"

Silence. Jack's not sure if the crowd around them has fallen quiet waiting for the fallout, or if he just can't hear them anymore through the rushing blood in his ears.

Arelys solves it. With a shriek she lunges at the dingo daemon, taking him by surprise and marking his muzzle with her powerful claws.

Jack waits until Hobb is distracted by his daemon, then he knocks his feet out from under him and they both go down swinging.

Fuck control.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

So, he'd expected Aunt Jessica. Hell, he'd _hoped_ for Aunt Jessica. It's usually Aunt Jessica, and he can explain it all so much better to her then he can to either of his fathers. How can he look Dad in the eyes and tell him that the reason he lost his head and got in _another_ fight is because the other guy has finally found just how to push his buttons?

How can he tell him that his buttons are his gay dads? He can't hurt him like that, either of them.

Failing Aunt Jessica, Dad was his second choice. After all, he used to be a lawyer and he's an FBI agent now, albeit closer to retirement than Jack likes to think about, but he's damn intimidating. And intimidating is good. Intimidating is looking Colin Hobb and his father in the eye with his massive black wolf-dog daemon at his side and telling them just why Jack is in the right here.

He never really considered the third option.

But when Pa and his hare daemon wander in looking vaguely absentminded and wearing trousers that are a shade too short and show off his brightly coloured odd socks (paw prints on one, and carrots on the other, a Christmas gift from Charlie), Jack doesn't hide the disappointed expression in time before he sees it.

Pa's face falls slightly, and Jack sinks lower into the chair, his nose stinging and lip tacky with old blood.

Well, shit.

Spencer Reid is anything but intimidating.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"He should be expelled! He attacked my son without provocation!" Hobb's dad is furious, ranting. A temper that Jack is suddenly glad his own Dad has control over. Hobb looks everywhere but at his father, or at Pa.

Pa hums disinterestedly and fiddles with his trouser leg. Aureilo has his eyes shut and looks thoroughly unimpressed with the situation. Jack watches them both carefully, trying to gauge just how much trouble he's in. "Doubtful," Pa says coolly. "Acts of physical violence are almost always precluded by some provocation, however slight."

They all look to Jack. He knows his part. "Some disagreement," he says, and doesn't look at the man sitting next to him. Pa can always tell when he lies. "I don't remember what."

"I don't either," Hobb says, jiggling his leg restlessly. Jack notes with satisfaction the bruise coming up on his cheek. "It was probably stupid. We're both really sorry."

Jack's not looking up but out the corner of his vision, he sees Pa's head snapping around to face Hobb. When he lifts his own gaze, his stomach drops.

Pa is staring at Hobb and there's none of the calm detachment in his expression that was there before. "Are you bullying my son?" he asks suddenly in a voice that's low and dangerous and the room goes quiet. "Because Jack has very rarely lied to me before and he did just now. He wouldn't do that to protect himself. Therefore he's protecting you… why?"

Hobb's mouth drops open. He doesn't answer.

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" splutters Hobb's father. Pa turns that gaze onto him, and suddenly Jack is reminded that his entire damn family is full of profilers. Scary ones.

He'd forgotten.

"Ah," Pa says softly. "I think that confirms it. Mrs. Charlin, I would request that this meeting become private between you, Mr. Hobb and I. I believe that we will be discussing matters of legality if your school has failed to create a safe learning environment for its students, of which my son is… _currently_... one."

Principal Charlin's face pales at the word 'legality' and Jack feels a savage bite of triumph. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe his Pa could hold his own.

"Mr. Reid, you may be jumping to conclusions without any evidence of wrongdoing…" she begins, her own daemon shifting his paws about uncomfortably.

"It's Doctor, and I doubt it," Pa says with a crooked smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"I'm not going to ask why you didn't tell us this was happening or what was said," Pa says on the way out, holding the door open for Jack to sidle through. "Because I respect your privacy and I understand your reasoning. I can't promise the same for your Dad. Nor your Aunt. And I do expect that the fighting stops."

"Yes, Pa," Jack says obediently, distracted. Hobb is outside, standing behind his dad and staring after them with an inscrutable expression. Pa doesn't see him.

"Morgan is probably going to have something to say about you letting him get close enough to do that as well," Pa chuckles, gesturing to Jack's bloodied nose, before looking down to rifle through his bag for his keys.

Hobb meets his gaze and even from this distance Jack can see the word he carefully mouths at them.

 _Faggots._

Damn. He shouldn't have said yes.

He hates breaking promises.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He doesn't even bother taking his schoolbooks the next day. He doubts he'll be there long enough to get to class.

"This really isn't a good idea," Arelys says, but her heart isn't in it and all night Jack's had the mental image of Hobb smirking in the back of his mind. His fist clenches.

He finds Hobb alone by the gate, finishing a smoke. He waits until he stamps the butt out before approaching. No point giving him a weapon. Hobb's daemon growls, a collie this time.

Hobb looks at him and there's anger in his eyes too. The meeting hadn't ended well for him by the looks of it. Jack's glad. This will be so much more satisfying if they're both trying. He's almost shaking with anticipation, and he can see a red flush to Hobb's neck.

"Your dad is pretty," Hobb says quietly and Jack knows that he's been planning out just exactly what to say all night, now that he knows Jack's weak point. "Nice mouth on him. He ever show you how well he uses it? Or does he make you do all the work?"

Jack sees red.

"Changed my mind," Arelys spits. "This is a great idea."

The sound of his fist connecting with Hobb's orbital bone is the sweetest thing he's heard all week.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _Fuck off, Charlie_ , Jack tries to say with his glare but his sister just smirks and leans forward, delighted to see Jack getting in trouble for once. Tait purrs and Jack thinks almost wistfully back to when Charlie would spend hours sitting quietly in her room instead of being a pain in his ass.

The door opens and Jack looks up straight into his Dad's face and there's that temper he's been told about. Tightly leashed maybe, but definitely there.

"Three stitches in your chin. Hobb swears you fractured his son's cheekbone. Well done, Jack." Dad stares at him and Arelys sinks down to hide behind his chair. "What the _hell_ were you thinking?"

Jack shrugs.

"Hobb says you went to him. That you started the fight. And for once, I believe him. You want to know why?"

Jack shrugs again, and Hal rumbles dangerously.

"Because you can't look me in the eye and tell me why you did it. You're seventeen, Jack. You can't solve problems with your fists. Spencer told me that he talked to you about this, that you agreed you weren't going to fight anymore."

Jack bites his lip. He tastes copper as it reopens the scabs. His chin burns even under the pain-numbing cream the nurse had smeared on it. "I lied," he says instead, almost savagely. _So what? Other kids lie all the time. Other kids don't have fucking mind readers for parents…_

He looks up at his dad as he says it and his facial expression hits him harder than Hobb ever could.

He's disappointed. In all of Jack's life, his father has never once been disappointed in him.

"You'll go to Spencer and you'll apologise to him," Dad says, and the disappointed expression doesn't shift. Jack is frozen in his chair and he feels sick. He doesn't know how to react to that emotion. He's never had any experience with this. "You'll apologise for letting him down and for letting yourself down as well. And you'll take whatever punishment he deems fit."

"I didn't let myself down," Jack defends himself, thinking of the hateful words Hobb had thrown at him. They didn't know. They _couldn't_ know. It was Jack's job to protect him from shit like that, from small-minded dicks like Colin Hobb. But to be punished for it wasn't fair, especially like this. With _that_ level of disappointment.

Dad's eyes narrow. "There's no point apologising until you mean it, Jack. Until then, don't bother. Now go to your room. This discussion is over."

He glances at Charlie on his way out the room, face flushed and eyes burning to match the cold nausea in his gut.

She doesn't look pleased anymore.

She looks away and he fancies he can see disappointment in her eyes as well.

If possible, it hurts worse than Dad's.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He can't do it. He can't bear his family looking at him like that.

"I'm sorry," he says to Pa, among other things, and Pa just nods and looks sad.

"I'm sorry," he chokes out to Hobb at the end of their suspension period and in his defence, the other boy looks sheepish. It doesn't really make things better.

But he can't risk this happening again. Another two weeks like that… unthinkable. Even Arelys is losing fur from the stress of it and Charlie's going quiet again like she always does when she's freaked out by something. Part of protecting his family is protecting her.

So apologising isn't enough. He has to control himself.

When he approaches Hobb and his group, Hobb looks nervous. His friends don't. Most of them like Jack. He's been at school with the majority of them for years. As long as Hobb keeps his mouth shut… no. Even if he doesn't, Jack isn't going to react. Arelys is a nervous mess, twitching at his knee and jumping at the slightest sound. Two of the girls look sympathetic.

"No more fighting, no more bullshit," Jack says, keeping his posture relaxed. He's taller than Hobb. Broader. Gifts from his dad. If it wasn't for his unassuming daemon, Hobb would never have looked at him as a target. "You say anything about my dads again and I'll go straight to the faculty. You think they won't be interested in blatant homophobia? They'll put you out on your ass. You should have stuck to making rabbit jokes."

Hobb opens his mouth and one of the girls kicks him. She looks pissed. "Don't be an idiot," she mutters, clearly not intending for Jack to hear. "You went too far."

"Fine," he snaps eventually and turns away.

It's the end of it.

For a while, anyway.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

It comes unravelled at a party, three weeks before Jack turns eighteen. He should have known it had been going way too well.

Briars is a skeeve and reminds Jack uncomfortably of his Uncle Sean sometimes, but he's normally fairly harmless. So when he hands Jack the packet, Jack takes it without thinking before glancing down and practically throwing it back.

"Not interested, man," he shouts over the beat of the music. Hell, he hardly even drinks. He can't. He'd never hide it from his parents. He's not going to touch whatever powder is in that bag. Besides, he's not an idiot, and growing up with feds gave him way too much information about what drugs can lead to.

Briars looks disappointed, doubly so when Elliot shakes his head firmly as well.

"Don't bother, Briars," says a familiar voice, and Jack's temper ticks up a notch even before he clicks consciously onto who it is. "Hotchner's a pussy, he won't touch it."

Hobb. Of course. Jack's not stupid. He knows the only kids supplying coke to other kids are the ones with rich parents. No way is Briars buying it on a part time pizza delivery income.

He's not entirely sure how it happens but the bag makes its way back over to him. There's not much in it at that point, but he pockets it anyway. He's not sure if he's doing it to stop anyone else from taking it and getting into shit, or if he's doing it to stop Hobb from muttering the word 'bitch' under his voice every time Jack walks past.

"What are you doing?" Elliot mutters. "Your parents are feds, man."

"I'm not going to snort it," Jack snaps. "I'll toss it in a bin on the way home, it'll shut Hobb up."

It's not until three days later when he walks into the laundry and finds Pa holding the bag and looking ill that he remembers.

 _Well, shit._

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Did you take any?" Pa asks, watching him closely, and Jack denies it seconds before realizing that Pa is _profiling_ him. Not taking him at face value. He's watching for Jack to lie.

That hurts.

"I was going to throw it out," Jack says, swallowing hard. "I've never touched drugs, Spencer, honest."

Pa blinks, and Jack hears his own voice echo back at him. He hasn't called Pa Spencer since Charlie was born, it just hadn't felt appropriate anymore.

There's a long moment where Pa looks down at Aureilo and the two seem to be communicating silently, before Pa nods slowly. "Alright," he says finally. "Okay. I can't let this go, Jack. I believe you, but you know I can't."

Jack's voice is a whine and he hates it, hates how much it sounds like pleading. "Don't tell Dad, please. He'll be so pissed off. And it's no big deal, really. I promise."

Aureilo flattens his ear back and it's a movement so familiar from every time Arelys has been scared that Jack is paralysed by the idea that Pa is scared of _something_ right now. He can't think what. It's not like he took anything, or had any intention of it.

It's not like he's really in their top ten most trustworthy list at the moment either, though.

"Come for a drive?" Pa asks eventually after a long, tense moment, and it's not really a question. "Your sister will be home soon."

Jack follows him without another word and desperately tries to think of ways to turn the time back six months, to when his parents thought him incapable of any wrongdoing.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

They drive in silence. Jack keeps his head down, occasionally peeking at Pa through his fringe, noting the tense set to his lips and the lines that have appeared around his eyes. Dad's age is beginning to show in his hands and in his hair, but Jack has always believed that Pa is ageless. He just seems so eternally young and optimistic.

Jack has a horrible feeling the past few months had contributed to the lines, and he'd do anything to take that back.

Aureilo lays on the backseat but he's not relaxed with his eyes closed and nose twitching like usual. He's stiff, paws tense, whiskers held with quivering tension. There's something between him and Pa that's unsaid, a waiting strain. Arelys is a huddled ball of bright fur next to him, watching Jack with worried golden eyes.

The car pulls up and parks and Jack glances around in confusion. It's a motel. A nice one, calm and quiet. The kind of Mom and Pop place you go to on a family holiday where the carpets might be old and worn but the beds are always comfy and the sheets are clean.

"Don't get out," Pa says when Jack reaches for the door-handle and he drops his hand and waits. Watches as Pa slips a hand in his pocket and fiddles with something restlessly, staring out the window, his mind a million miles away.

"I'm sorry," Jack says finally, because if something isn't said soon he's going to break. Not knowing what's coming is somehow worse than if Pa had just screamed at him in the laundry or gone straight to Dad.

Hazel eyes flicker to him and lock him in place.

"For what?" Aureilo asks quietly. It's the first time he's spoken all day, and Jack wonders for a wild second if he and Pa are fighting again as Pa shoots him a look.

"For the drugs and the fighting and lying and…" Jack trails off. He's rambling, desperate, and he can tell that everyone in the car can see straight through him.

"Are you sorry for your actions or sorry that I'm upset?" Pa says, and Jack can see a muscle in his throat working as he swallows. There's a scar on his neck from where he was shot years ago, and Jack focuses on it so he doesn't have to meet those eyes.

"For… I don't know."

Pa nods slowly. "Because that's a result, you know. Every action, every choice, it affects someone. When you fight at school, it hurts us all. We're going to be angry. We're going to be upset. When you bring drugs into our home, that's going to hurt us more. We're going to be angry, of course. We're also going to be worried."

Aureilo speaks and his voice is low. "We're going to be scared."

Jack's eyes are burning again and he's far too old to let his Pa see him cry, so he looks down at his lap and how white his knuckles are as he bunches his fists. "I didn't take them. I wouldn't." He's like a broken record. He knows that it's not enough. "You don't have to be scared for me."

Pa laughs. He actually laughs, although there's no humour in it and the sound lingers in the confines of the car long after he's stopped. "I'm your father, Jack. I have been since you were two years old. I'll always be scared for you. Scared that I can't protect you anymore from what's out there, and scared that I didn't do a good enough job teaching you how to protect yourself."

"You did!" Arelys, her voice squeaking slightly with unravelling emotions. "We are careful, you did teach us well. You and Dad and Hal and Aureilo…"

"You taught us to be much smarter than we've been acting," Jack says, relaxing his hands and watching the blood flow back into his skin and turn it a light pink. "We've been stupid."

Someone touches his arm and he looks up finally to find Pa frowning. It's not the tense look he'd had before, or the disappointed expression Dad had worn and Jack can't handle ever seeing on Pa's face, so he feels the tension uncoil slightly.

"The smartest people can fall into that trap," Pa says very carefully, and Jack can almost feel him choosing his words. "Of thinking that they're far too clever to make mistakes. That things like addiction are beneath them. Why didn't you come to us if you've been struggling? With everything that's been happening?"

Jack doesn't know how to answer that. "I don't know."

"Because you think that we haven't been there? That we haven't made stupid mistakes ourselves, that we couldn't help you? I can assure you, we were young once. Between us I'm sure we've covered all the mistakes you can make as a teenaged boy."

It's Jack's turn to laugh and it's almost as shrill as Arelys' voice when she panics. "Yeah, but I bet you never brought home a bag of coke and left it in your jeans pocket," he tries to joke, flinching as Pa's mouth turns downward slightly.

"I have failed you," Pa says eventually, and pulls his hand from his pocket. There's something in it. Jack peers at it but Pa's holding it too tightly and he can't see it clearly. "Because the most important thing we should have taught you is that you can come to us about anything, be it bullying... or drugs." He holds his hand out and Jack takes the object, feeling warm metal dropping heavily into his palm. "Even if that bullying is about your fathers' sexuality, and you feel like you'd hurt us by letting us know that."

He really hates having profilers for parents.

To avoid answering, he looks down at the thing Pa has given him and blinks. He doesn't really know what to say.

"Is this a sobriety coin?" he asks finally, closing his hand around it and looking up, something heavy and cold sinking deep into the pit of his belly. "Like, from AA?"

"Narcotics Anonymous," Pa corrects him, leaning back in the chair. There's a trickle of sweat on his forehead. His hands are shaking. He's terrified. "I told you, Jack. The smartest people still make mistakes."

Holy shit. Holy _shit._

"You?" he squeaks out, struggling to form the words around a suddenly clumsy and uncooperative tongue.

"When you were a baby, before your mom died." Pa isn't looking at him. Jack can see his ears turning red. He can't really think past the all-encompassing shock of finding out something so huge about someone he thought he knew everything about. "It wasn't recreational. It wasn't fun. It was an addiction. I thought I was too clever, far too clever, to fall into the trap that so many had stumbled into before me. But I wasn't. Aaron found me on the floor of my apartment. I should have died that day. I very nearly did."

Jack counts back. "Fifteen years sober sounds pretty smart to me," he says, trying not to think of Pa high or shooting up or dying on the floor in a pool of his own vomit like the chick from the anti-drug PSAs they all had to watch. Especially that last one. He's never not going to be able to think of that last one.

Pa closes his eyes and shakes his head.

Jack turns the coin over, the slight relief he'd felt at the knowledge of the years between him and those events dispelling and turning back into cold horror.

A raised two under his thumb. Two. _Two years._

"Is this your old coin?" he asks, because he'd been taught that the simplest solution is often the correct one.

"Occam's razor," Pa scolds, because he'd been the one to teach him that and he prides logic in the face of trouble. Even in this, he wants Jack to find the truth.

"You relapsed." The words burn on the way out and they sound wrong. He almost chokes on them. "Why?"

Pa shrugs and it's such a nonchalant gesture that Jack has to think about what he'd said, in case he'd accidentally asked him what they were having for dinner. "I'm an addict, Jack. Addiction is defined as a chronic condition. Chronic, defined as lasting a long time or persistently recurring. I'm always going to find an excuse to justify my behaviour."

"But if there's a reason…"

"No reason is good enough. They're all excuses. Perhaps today I'll get high because I've seen things in my life that no man can comprehend. Perhaps tomorrow it will be because everything is so much easier when I give in. Maybe yesterday it was because I was alone and afraid, or maybe instead of being self-pitying I'll deflect the blame onto those around me. Maybe my husband is distant because he works too much, or my son tries so hard to be perfect that I know he's going to crack under the pressure, or even that my daughter won't speak and that's very likely my fault. But the real reason behind all those justifications is because I _like_ being high, Jack."

Jack can't breathe. Pa glances at him, and there's a longing hidden in his expression that frightens Jack to the core because he doesn't think he's ever seen him this raw and exposed before.

"I like being high and there's hardly a day goes by that I don't think at least once, however fleetingly, of how much I crave that feeling again. Does that make them sound appealing to you? Knowing how much I desire them?"

No. Not in the slightest.

It makes them terrifying because nothing, _nothing_ , should make his strong, self-contained Pa sound so hungry. As though he's being denied something.

Jack thinks he might be sick, for real this time. His head spins and he pushes his palm against his mouth just in case, tasting a coppery trace of the coin, proof of his Pa's failure to outrun his demons.

No. Not failure, not at all. Proof of his success at fighting those demons.

"I'm sorry," he says finally when he can speak without his breakfast ending up in his lap and this time Pa nods. He knows that Jack means it this time. "Pa, I'm so fucking sorry, for everything."

And then he's crying because suddenly he knows without a doubt that no matter how much he tries to protect them, his parents have been hurt and continue to be hurt and there's nothing he can do to fix that. He's crying and Pa holds him close, probably crying as well from the dampness on Jack's hair, and Jack knows that what he did wrong wasn't the fighting or pocketing that bag or any of that.

It was thinking that his parents could ever be disappointed enough in him that they'd walk away and leave him to deal with things on his own.

Because they never would.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He finds the coin that night on his bedside cupboard and keeps it close.

Later, he taps gently on his parents' bedroom door and lets himself in. They look up at him; Dad reclining on the bed with a book held loosely in his hand and Pa cross-legged on the floor, casefiles that he hurriedly snaps shut to hide the contents spread out around his feet and Hal's head on his knee.

"I love you both," he says finally, because Dad looks worried and he can't remember the last time he said it to them. He bets Pa remembers. "I just want you to know that… and that I'm proud to have you as my parents. Even if I'm a jerk sometimes and don't deserve your pride."

Dad's face turns confused but Pa beams up at him and Jack wonders how he could have ever thought that Pa could look old.

"We love you too," Aureilo says because everyone else is either too stunned by Jack's announcement, or too busy basking in it. "And of course we're proud of you, silly."

"Always," says Hal.


	5. Our Fixed Nightmares

**Chapter Five: Our Fixed Nightmares**

 ** _Some nightmares don't end when we wake up._**

 **.**

 **.**

Pa is sitting in the kitchen with his back to her when she walks in, and he doesn't look up when she raps out her pattern on the glossy wood of the table with her knuckles. He should have. This is how they greet each other in the mornings. He's never ignored her before.

Every morning, she taps out half a pattern and he finishes it. It's as much a part of everyday as getting dressed or brushing her hair is.

She knocks louder. He still doesn't look around. Suddenly, she's struck with the realization that this might not even be her Pa.

Tait presses against her leg and opens his mouth in a silent mewl. She can feel him there but when she looks down, he's gone. She's alone with this stranger's back.

She's alone.

She opens her mouth to call for Dad to save her and nothing comes out.

She's alone. It's been months since she's last talked, and she doesn't remember how to scream.

The man turns around and she jolts awake, her hand clenching around Tait and making him gasp with surprise and wriggle away. He turns accusing eyes onto her, a common rat with black fur that seems to swallow the darkness around them to the point where he's just a pair of beady eyes and the faintest suggestion of whiskers against her hand.

The room is unfamiliar and silent and when she sits up, her heart skipping a beat at the sight of the wardrobe. There's a dark line of blackness where the door is slightly open. It's a ridiculous thing to be frightened of, especially as the shock from her dream begins to fade away, but she swallows nervously anyway. Tait turns his head and eyes the wardrobe as well, shifting into _Diaemus youngi_ and baring his sharp fangs. She wraps her hands around his leathery wings and pulls him close.

She wants her room. She wants her room and her bed without the endless possibilities of what could be in that wardrobe, and most of all she wants her parents.

She could scream right now and they won't be able to hear her. It occurs to her that maybe she still can't scream, maybe someone could attack her and Tait right now, and neither will be able to make a sound. Someone could attack them tonight, now, and no one will know until Aunt Jessica or Grandpa wake up in the morning and notice she's not at breakfast.

Is the crack wider? It looks wider.

She shrinks back against the wall and reaches a nervous hand across the gap between her bed and the bedside cupboard, reaching for the phone Dad had bought her three years before. _Emergencies only,_ he'd said sternly, showing her how to program numbers into the speed dial even though she already knew how.

 _Ring me whenever you need,_ Pa had said, downloading games and setting high scores for her to beat if she got bored on the bus. _Even if you just need to hear my voice._

Her fingers brush the phone, wrap around it, and pull it closer. She needs to hear his voice now. She needs to know he hasn't vanished, that he's not just a stranger's back at the kitchen table.

The phone slips from her fingers and slides down the gap between her mattress and cupboard with an unearthly racket and she dives under the cover, mouth falling open with shock and fear. Tait dives under with her and tries to crawl into her nightie, wings shifting and becoming bigger, fluffier. She can't tell what he is but he's stealing all the blanket and leaving her exposed with his terrified scrambling.

She wants Dad or Hal or Pa or even Aureilo and they're not here, they're working, and she's alone and she feels sick and shaking, trying to cover her face with her pillow to muffle any noise so no one can hear her and find, her but her pillow is damp and Tait is in the way. She uses him instead and feels bristling whiskers on her neck as he turns his head towards her, his hot, wet breath making the atmosphere under the covers uninhabitable.

She must have made some sort of noise because there's a sound outside her nest of blankets and she freezes. Light flickers on.

There's someone in her room.

 _"_ _Grandpa,"_ she screams, but her voice still doesn't work, and she's left curled around her gangly cheetah-formed daemon with her mute mouth and eyes burning with the need to blink.

Covers rustle. There's the sound of something scraping against the bedside cupboard. Tait pulls black lips back to expose strong white teeth, but he doesn't stop shaking. She closes her eyes.

"What are you doing, Bug?" says Jack's voice and she hurls herself at the sound, covers and daemon and all. The sheet is wrapped around her and she can't get it off. Her head smacks painfully into his collarbone and he grunts, and Tait is all paws and a thrashing tail and she's still crying. "Ow hey, what are you doing, weirdo?"

He pulls the sheet off her head, the light stinging her eyes, and he's laughing until he sees her face. "Oh, Charlie. What's wrong?" He makes it sound like he's teasing her. He always makes it sound like he's teasing, even when he's not. "You're all yuck."

He's sitting on the bed, and Arelys is watching with her ears standing on end. Charlie crawls into his lap and wipes the back of her hand against her sticky face and lip.

"Nightmare?" Arelys asks, hopping up next to them and leaning against Tait as he wriggles backwards out of the mess of linen. "Why didn't you come get us? We're right across the hall."

She sniffs and glances at the wardrobe. It's a lot less frightening in the light. And the crack is still the same size.

Jack looks too, and he doesn't roll his eyes or snort like she expects him to. Instead he wraps one arm around her and pulls her into an awkward hug. He hasn't hugged her in ages, not since he turned fourteen and declared hugging as stupid.

"Yeah, I get scared of the dark too sometimes," he says unexpectedly, and she widens her eyes. Her brother, scared? He's never scared of anything. He's far too old to be scared. She shakes her head adamantly, sure he's lying.

"It's true," Arelys agrees. Tait is just like her now, a _Lepus californicus_ with black-tipped ears. She wonders if Hal ever feels outnumbered with the amount of leporids in their home sometimes. "I mean, anything could be hiding in the dark."

That's true. She's snuck into her parents' office before, despite their care in keeping the door locked. She's read Dad's case files and Pa's journals. They're both gone right now because of what hides in the dark. She misses them.

"Do you know who else is scared of the dark sometimes?" Jack asks, and she shrugs and reaches out to stroke Tait's silky ears. It's a nice change when he's like this, smooth and sleek instead of fluffy or bristly. She doesn't think she'd like it all the time though. "Pa."

That's _not_ true. Her brother is a stinking liar. She glares at him and hopes her red eyes don't ruin the effect. Pa isn't scared of anything ever and even if, impossibly, he is, Aureilo certainly isn't. And Dad is always with him and Hal scares everything away so Pa never has a _chance_ to be scared.

Jack holds his hand out and her phone is in his palm, covered in dust and fur from under the bed. "Want to ask him yourself?"

Yes. _Yes_. She takes the phone and presses the speed dial. They both listen to it ring.

What if he doesn't answer? What if he can't?

She's panicking over irrational things now, she knows. Pa will always answer if she needs him, always. He promised. She can't think of anything that would stop him from picking up the phone.

She can hear her breath whistling as it speeds up. Jack takes her hand and squeezes it reassuringly. She counts doubles in her head while it rings. She's in triple digits when the line clicks.

 _"_ _Charlie love, hello."_

She lets out her air in a whoosh and Jack smiles. It's _Pa!_ He picked up!

"Hey, Pa. Charlie had a nightmare. She wants to talk to you."

Pa hums and the speaker crackles at the sound. "A nightmare, huh? Did you know that a 'mare' used to refer to a mythological ghost or demon that haunted people's' dreams? There was a journal published in…"

In the morning she won't remember falling asleep to the lilt of his voice, but she wakes up feeling safe with Arelys and Tait next to her.

She's glad that the nightmares don't last for long once you open your eyes.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Go to bed, Spencer."

Spencer shuffles his feet against the carpet, vividly aware of how much that annoys his father. "It's dark in there. My lamp broke."

William doesn't look at him, but Spencer knows he's rolling his eyes. He can see it in the way Harback's hackles are lifting. He wishes his mom was awake. She sleeps a lot these days.

She says she's tired and Spencer doesn't think about it much more than that because he knows far too many reason why.

"The onset of nightmares in children directly correlates with stresses in the child's life, especially if they know someone with a chronic illness. Fearfulness in waking life exacerbates…" Aureilo is angry, rattling off their knowledge. As always, William ignores him. He seems to think that ignoring Aureilo will make him stop talking.

Spencer doubts it.

"Spencer. Stop. Go to bed."

Aureilo doesn't meet his eyes as they slink down the hallway towards the gloom of their bedroom.

"We can sneak in with Mom again," Aureilo suggests as they reach the door, tucking his ears back to make himself look small. Spencer shakes his head and calculates how many steps between the doorway and the bed there is. How long his feet will be touching the floor, down to the second.

If he gets a running jump he can cut that down by .3 seconds…

"We can leave the overhead light on. If we shove clothes under the crack, he might not notice."

"He will. He'll get mad." Spencer tenses and prepares to throw himself bodily into the dark. Then he stops. He can feel his arms starting to tremor, his heartbeat quickening. Signs of stress. Signs of fear. "Turn into something that can see. Stop being a hare. Be nocturnal."

"I can't. I can't concentrate, stop thinking at me so loud. What's wrong with being a hare? I like it. You stop being scared. There. Not so easy to stop being yourself, is it?"

His brain is malfunctioning. He can't stop it. Does that mean his daemon is malfunctioning too?

Maybe there really is something wrong with him.

"I want Mom," he whispers and feels his eyes beginning to burn. He doesn't want to go into the dark.

"So do I," Aureilo admits, shoulders slumping. "I can try to be a bat?" He's being nice to make up for snapping before.

They turn as one to look down the hall to their parents' room.

 _Weak_ , whispers the memory of his father's voice.

When Spencer and Aureilo crawl into the bed next to her, she doesn't wake up. Sonnet does, and chirrs in greeting. "Even the bravest knights get scared sometimes," he says sleepily, leaning over and rasping his tongue over Spencer's cheek to clean off the stray signs of tears. "Even the bravest."

"We don't feel brave," Aureilo mumbles, but the cheetah doesn't hear.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

JJ used to share her room with Rosaline, before she got older and wanted more space to drown in her loneliness.

JJ's used to sleeping in her own room now. It's been years since she last woke up from a nightmare with her sister in the next bed; Rosaline waking up to JJ crying and telling her everything's okay, go back to sleep.

It's only been months since the room up the hall has been empty though.

When JJ has nightmares now, she's the one drowning.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Aaron doesn't have nightmares when he's asleep. He never has. He knows a guy at school who brags all the time about never having nightmares. The guy once admitted to Aaron that he kind of wished he could have one, just once, just to see what the fuss was about.

Aaron doesn't need to have one to know what they're like. He always specifies that he doesn't have them when he's asleep, inviting people to pick up on what he's not saying. It's his middle ground. Mom says "Don't tell anyone, what would the neighbours think?" The PSAs at school and the badly formatted pamphlets in the counsellor's office say ' _Scream it to the world! Someone will listen!'_

He's not good at screaming, he's learned to stay quiet when he's scared, so this is his middle ground. "I don't have nightmares when I'm asleep," translates in Aaron-speech to, "But I have them when I'm awake, please help me."

No one does. The pamphlets lie.

Sean has nightmares though, screaming ones that make his body go rigid and his eyes roll. Aaron hates it because Sean likes to sleep in his bed with him when he gets scared, which is often, and he can't sleep for fear of the piercing shrieks he knows are coming.

Mom takes Sean to doctors. They call them night terrors. Then she stops taking him because the questions get pointed and they start looking at Aaron and the suggestion of bruises in his movement. They ask what form Sean's daemon takes _(anything hidden)_ and what form Aaron's does _(anything fierce)_ and they hum over the answers like they know what it means.

The nightmares stop eventually because Aaron starts mouthing off and being _there_. He doesn't hide anymore. He's in the way, all the time, and always has a smart answer ready. Sean's not as loud or arrogant so he doesn't cop any of it. Aaron likes it better that way. And it makes the nightmares stop.

It doesn't make Sean stop crawling into his bed most nights though and Hal starts to take bigger and bigger forms as Aaron's nightmare continues. It gets squashed in there with a snotty-nosed kid, Aaron and their two daemons.

Sean starts wetting the bed; at least Aaron's pretty sure it's Sean. He doesn't yell at him though because he gets enough shit as it is. He just cleans it up. He has to pretend to sleep in a lot so that their dad doesn't catch him washing the bedding – he's gone out by the time Aaron gets up. If he hasn't, Aaron hides the linen in the bottom of his closet until he does.

He gets in trouble for being lazy, but it's better than the alternative.

One day, Hal takes wolf form for the first time and she bites the hand that's raised against him. There's a moment when Aaron considers telling her to knock him down and bite the voice as well. Stop the nightmare. He doesn't though.

Hal shifts instantly to a dog and cringes away with her tail between her leg, yelping. She's a dog after that a lot, but only ever a wolf when they're alone.

He's thirteen years old, and in five years he'll be eighteen and he can leave.

The nightmare continues until then.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He doesn't remember his nightmare except he was somewhere crowded, the light was bright and he couldn't find Mommy.

He doesn't panic when he wakes up. It's no good panicking. There's a wet nose on his cheek; Filimay checking to see if he's okay.

"Go get Mommy," he says, because he's scared to put his feet on the ground without the light being on. Normally he loves the dark, but Daddy didn't check under the bed tonight which means it's not safe yet.

Mommy never forgets to check.

Filimay says okay and the wet nose becomes the dry whisper of a soft wing. A moth, he thinks, watching the ghostly shape flutter up and out the open doorway. She can travel because she doesn't have to touch the ground. They're not afraid of the dark – just the unknown. Once someone checks under the bed, it becomes the known. Then it's safe. That's what Uncle Spence says, anyway.

Footsteps and the hallway light comes on. The heavy pad of paws.

Daddy. Mommy's not here. Work, again. He'd forgotten.

"Alright, buddy?" Daddy says with a smile. Henry smiles back, weakly. He's not that scared now anyway. He just wishes Mommy was here.

"You didn't check under my bed," he says, biting his lip. It sounds sillier when he says it out loud, especially to his Daddy. "And Filimay can't check because daemons can't see monsters. Everyone knows that."

"Everyone, huh?" Daddy asks, and kneels down to peer under the bed. Mia ducks her head and looks as well, even though Henry _just_ told her that she can't see anything anyway. Parents are silly sometimes. "Well, it's all clear under here. Wanna tell me what you're really scared of? Because I think we both know it ain't monsters."

He doesn't lie because Filimay doesn't like it if he lies and Mommy can always tell. "When's Mommy going to be home?"

Daddy is quiet for a long time, long enough that Henry thinks that maybe he didn't hear him. Then, "Your mama has a lot of really important work to do, bud. And that means she has to go away sometimes."

"But I want her here." His voice is whining and Fi makes a disapproving noise in his ear. He turns his head and blows on her wings, just to annoy her. She shifts into a bat and glares.

"I know." Daddy sits on the bed and hugs him close. "I do too."

"Me three," Mia says.

"Four," says Filimay after a pause.

Daddy chuckles. "Want to sleep with me and Mia tonight?"

"Only if you promise to check under your bed too."

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Jack sleeps on the couch because him and Molly are fighting again and it's just easier to let her have the goddamn bed and get the hell over it. If he hears the words, 'grow up,' again, he's going to walk out and damn his deposit.

Of course, he can't exactly walk out on his parents and they say it too, so he should probably be a little less snappy with her. He's ready to admit she may have a point.

Tomorrow. He'll maybe admit it tomorrow.

Sometimes, he wonders how his parents have done it for so long. Cohabitation is tedious as hell. He drinks a beer to calm down, tells Arelys off for nagging him about his overdue assignments, and tries to beat Pa's score on some stupid mobile game on his phone until he falls asleep.

He dreams of a phone ringing.

He wakes up to his phone still ringing, buzzing under his fingertips from where it had slipped from his hand to the floor during the night.

Then he wakes up properly. It's still night. He looks at the screen clearly now.

 **Charlie calling**

 **Eight missed calls**

 **Twelve messages received**

 **Nine missed calls**

"Answer it," Arelys says blearily, sharing in the aching head he has from drinking beer on an empty stomach. "She's probably forgotten the damn time again and wants to know if fruit bats have knees or something stupid."

 **Charlie calling**

"Sup, Bug."

When he says those words, he's twenty-two years old and still just a boy, really. Those are the last words he says as a boy.

There's a wet, shuddering breath on the other end, and then Charlie changes everything.

"Jack. It's Pa."

Some nightmares you can't ever wake up from, no matter how much you want to.


	6. The Sum of our Fathers

**Chapter Six: The Sum of Our Fathers**

 ** _We are the sum of the people who shape us._**

 **.**

 **.**

David Rossi steps into the hall with his great owl daemon on his arm and the confident stride of a man who knows his place in the world. Not even the cane in his hand slows him. There's not much that slows him.

Even retirement has tried and failed.

Weaving through the tables, Eris sees them first.

Rossi pauses at the sight of the two backs in front of him. He can see Hal from here easily, the large coal black shape of her hulking against the white table coverings. A familiar laugh floats over, and Hotch turns his head to look at the laugher, his own mouth twitching.

Rossi can see who laughed as well. Henry. The LaMontagnes have beaten him here.

The curly brown head next to Hotch throws him for a loop for at first. He blinks, double-takes, and then he steps back to savour the sight as he recognises who it is, just for a moment.

"Dave, they're waiting," Eris scolds him, her beak brushing his ear affectionately.

"Alright, alright," he soothes her, starting forward again. His cane clicks on the floor. He reaches down and taps the shoulder attached to that wild hair, and hazel eyes turn to regard him with sombre thought.

"Uncle Dave!" Charlie says in delight, brushing her hair back and smiling. She stands and hugs him, just as hopelessly scrawny as her father. Rossi glances down at Hotch, who nods in greeting.

"Back in my day, people had the common decency to be shorter than me," he says, releasing her and finding himself tilting his head back to look into her eyes. She grins widely.

"Back in my day, you were younger," she says with a laugh, pulling the chair out next to her dad and waving him into it. Being back in DC is treating her well. She looks… settled. Settled in a way she hasn't looked since she was fifteen.

"You're polite at least," Eris says, brushing her arm with a wing as Rossi takes a seat. "You look nervous, Aaron."

Hotch turns the same blank expression onto him that he used to use on unsubs, before even he'd succumbed to his years and the weight of their lives and stepped back from the BAU.

Then he smiles slightly and the nervousness shows clearer. Hal leans her head on his lap, muzzle and ears silvered and nose twitching slightly. "You know how he is about crowds," he murmurs, rubbing her ears. "The others aren't even here yet. I didn't expect so many people."

Charlie turns from where she's arguing cheerfully with Michael and Henry about something that sounds convoluted and sciencey, and rolls her eyes at the two old men. "What did you expect, just us and the janitor? It's a big deal, Dad – he's been working towards this since he first got the research position."

"I know, I know…" Aaron trails off and taps at his glass. "It's just… well, his last few speeches haven't exactly gone well."

"As long as he doesn't try to tell any jokes," says a loud voice from behind them and Derek Morgan appears with Penelope Garcia at his side. Rossi considers for a moment how those two have never quite changed.

"You can tell I'm from a family of workaholics," Charlie grumbles, waving awkwardly at Morgan. "Even here, I can't get away from the office."

Morgan scowls with mock fierceness. "Hey, that's no way to treat your boss, Reid."

"Like you were ever much better," Hotch says, mouth twitching marginally.

"Are we late?" Garcia asks, smoothing her dress down, almost more nervous than the rest of them combined.

"Just in time, I think," Prentiss says, smiling in greeting at them and sliding effortlessly into the seat between Charlie and Henry. Margo isn't with her, and Charlie looks disappointed for a moment. "He's coming out now." Sergio jumps up onto her lap after bumping noses against Taithleach, the bigger cat scooting out from under the tablecloth to peer over the table at the podium.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rossi sees Prentiss take Charlie's hand and something in his heart twinges.

He's getting sentimental in his dotage.

The first thing Rossi thinks when the familiar man takes to the stage is, _'Christ, I never looked that bloody young.'_

The second thing is, _'I never looked that scared either.'_

"Oh boy," Charlie groans as the man's mouth opens and nothing comes out. Rossi sees a flicker of lanky legs and long ears at the man's knee, and he jolts. _Good ol' lop ears. Give him a kick._

"Welcome everyone." The microphone crackles and Henry snorts loudly. Rossi does too. JJ glares at them both, narrowing her eyes dangerously. "I'd like to thank you all for coming today in this exciting new frontier in the field of neurodaimonlogy. Normally, this is the part where I'd start with a joke…"

It's Morgan's turn to groan and Rossi almost fancies that Hotch does too. When he turns his head to look at his old friend, the man looks almost suspiciously innocent, his dark eyes crinkled at the corners in a smile his mouth hides.

"… But today I want to do something different and start with a story."

The smiles pauses. They all do.

"When I was younger, my parents told me I could do anything. I know this isn't exactly anything new… parents are always their children's' greatest-and sometimes only-fans. Mine were no exception. The only difference is that mine genuinely believed that my potential was boundless, and had the science to back it. They knew that the only barrier to success, in any field, is knowledge.

I grew up surrounded by books and people who delighted in the acquisition of information. I can't place my first memory clearly but I know that it was very likely the sound of someone reading to me. And it was this foundation that put me on the path to this room today, boring you all to tears.

The human brain is a complex machine that, in all our years of study, we've only just began to tap the potential of. There are so many questions left unanswered, questions that I've dreamed of answering since I was twenty-two years old. Why does the human mind fail when the body is still strong? Could the link between human and daemon, the intricate mysteries of that connection, be part of the solution? Until now, we've had neither the technology nor the ability to study that connection. Until now.

I misspoke before. I alleged that I didn't remember my first memory. This is untrue. My first memory is of a monster, and a daemon that stood between me and that monster. A daemon who, without the guidance of his human, risked everything to save the life of a two-year old boy. That daemon's name was Aureilo, and he was my father's."

You can hear a pin-drop in the room as Jack pauses, his dark eyes scanning the audience and setting on Hotch. Rossi feels the tablecloth move slightly by his knee and glances down to see Charlie's hand sneaking across to reach for her dad's arm.

Hotch takes her hand and squeezes slightly, and that twinge goes again in Rossi's chest. Damn sentiment. Eris makes a low noise of agreement and presses her face against the side of his head.

"Spencer Reid was the man I aspire to be, both in my academic and professional career and my personal life. When I was two, he and Aureilo risked everything to keep me safe. Brave, intelligent, and self-sacrificing; these qualities made him who he was. They're also what eventually took him from us, far too early.

We don't know enough about the connection between daemon and human. We do know that what one feels, the other shares. We know that to separate human from daemon is to cause irrevocable damage to both. And we know that if that connection weakens, so does the unit as a whole.

When I was twenty-two, my father died. At the time of his death, he was forty-seven.

We don't know enough about the connection – but we do know enough to theorize. We know that extended periods of distance between daemons and their humans can damage that connection, sometimes fatally, always irreversibly. We know that that damage can take years, even decades, to show. What we don't know is how to detect it or how to heal it. And that's why I stand here today. It's why my father doesn't.

My father sacrificed himself to protect me, and even towards the end of his life, he never once regretted it. He can't be here today to see the influence he's had on me and the paths I've chosen to tread because of him, but I know that he'd be proud to know that because of him others won't have to suffer the same way.

I could go on. And Pa probably would. Endlessly, trust me. But I know that if I do my sister will be up here to tell me just how much of a blabbermouth I'm being."

Muted laughter rings out and fades quickly. Someone sniffs loudly near Rossi, and he suspects Garcia. Another sniff, deeper. "Morgan," mumbles Eris, turning her head, and Rossi tries to smile.

He tries and fails, his mind miles away and years ago, lost in the memory of a familiar smile and hasty card tricks swept aside by agile fingers. A friend.

A friend been and gone. So impossibly quickly.

Jack steps back and fiddles with a sheet draped over a long board. He holds the sheet, taking a deep breath. Hotch leans forward. His hand shifts on the table, and Rossi glances down at the paper underneath. Information on the research conducted by Jack's team – and his name at the top. _Doctor Jack Hotchner, M.D., Ph.D._ Reid would have given anything to have seen that.

"Finally," Charlie says, her voice thick. "He's been refusing to tell us this bit, being all sneaky and annoying. Better be worth it."

They all hear the deep breath Jack takes before speaking again, the waver in his voice. Theirs isn't the only table drying damp eyes anymore. "Without much more ado, I'd like to officially open the Spencer Reid Research Centre for Neurodaimological Degenerative Diseases."

He tugs the sheet down, revealing the name of the centre in large, plain lettering. No embellishment. Jack isn't really the type to embellish. Rossi fancies that Spencer probably would have been.

Hotch's breath catches slightly, and Rossi sees the symbol next to the plain lettering.

"Oh," Charlie says quietly. "Oh, Jack."

The dark silhouette of a wolf with a leaping white hare at its side.

He can't tell from this angle, but Rossi fancies that maybe the wolf isn't everything it seems and the hare is so much more.

 **.**

 _"_ _I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom."_

― **Umberto Eco** , **_Foucault's Pendulum_**


	7. From Dust

**Chapter Seven: From Dust**

 ** _They were promised five years._**

 ** _They get seven months._**

 **.**

 **AN: Tagged for character death, heavy angst, and references to suicide for this chapter and the next, as they're posted as companion pieces.**

 **.**

Pa is sitting at the kitchen table with the kind of face Charlie's only ever seen on him three times in her entire life. Once when Grandma died, once when Uncle Derek was shot on duty, and the first time the therapists had referred to her as 'troubled'.

It's his 'the worst has happened' face and it makes him look grey and sinks a knot of worry deep into her belly.

There's paperwork in front of him. It looks complicated. He says nothing when she takes it.

It takes her three times to understand what she's reading. Oh, the contents are easy enough. It's the name on the top that has her thrown. She looks at it, looks at Pa, looks back down.

Tait makes a low sound like someone is stepping on his paw.

Aureilo looks away.

She reads it again, slowly. Memorizes it. Some words are easier to remember than others. Some words she'll never forget, no matter how hard she tries.

 _Stage D congestive heart failure._

 _Contraindications: unsuitable for invasive surgical measures incl. heart transplant or ACID. Palliative care suggested when condition worsens._

 _Long-term damage to link with daemon indicated during test conditions; suggestive of failure if placed under stress._

 _Five years._

Five years.

She'll be twenty. That's not old enough.

She fumbles for words, loses them. None feel right. Pa still hasn't looked at her. There's footsteps behind her and Daddy walks in. He knows. She can tell. His face is grey too. He looks old, so much older than Pa does. Her eyes burn and she's not even sure why yet, it hasn't sunk in. Hal watches her with sad, dark eyes over her greying muzzle.

"One in five adults at age forty will develop heart failure," she says finally, and those aren't the words she's looking for at all. She wishes Jack was here. Jack should be here, he knows how to say things so much better than she does. "Half of people diagnosed with heart failure die within five years of the diagnosis."

Daddy closes his eyes but not before she sees the tears.

Pa drops his head in his hands and says nothing.

He's only forty-seven.

There's supposed to be more time.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

They tell Jack. He doesn't take it well. How could he? How could anyone?

Charlie's not sure she completely understands it herself.

He's angry at first. Then quiet. Quiet for days and that's scary because she's always been the quiet one but now she's talking for everyone, talking too much. Talking for Dad and the way his hands shake now like he's already imagining them empty. Talking for Pa because he's smiling a lot and using all his teeth do so and it's scary and not at all as reassuring as he's attempting to be, because it's a smile that screams, _'I'll be gone soon so I'm trying to be okay with that.'_

And she's talking for Tait because he's scared, so scared, and she wishes she was a daemon too so she could show her fear with bristling fur and wide eyes and maybe turn into a bird and fly the hell away from this house that won't be a home for much longer _(five years)_.

Then Jack gets angry again.

He walks into her room. She thinks he's finally going to hug her because he hasn't done that yet, he hasn't gotten to the stage where he's realized that there are other people in this soon to be broken _(59.99 months)_ family that need him, and she hasn't had a chance to be selfish. His face is pale but his eyes are red and she's seen him angry like this before, but never at her. Arelys is shaking, angry, vicious.

He throws a book at her. He must have thought she'd catch it, but she doesn't. She lets it thud into her chest and the corner hurts but she doesn't flinch. He doesn't look sorry.

She only has to glance at the title to know it. It's one of Pa's old textbooks. It's a medical textbook. She's read it before.

The thing about family is they can be selfish and Charlie's family is no exception. Pa is being selfish because he's decided to die, and later she'll be furious at him for that. Dad is being selfish because she's pretty sure he's pretending it's not happening. And she gets her chance to be selfish because in this moment, when Jack needs her, she doesn't respond.

"You're supposed to be such a fucking genius," he says quietly, and his eyes burn her. "So why can't you save him?"

 _(One thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days, and we've wasted eight of them being selfish)_

She doesn't say nothing, because even that would be less selfish than what she does say.

"I hate you," she says instead of nothing, and he blinks and his eyes are shiny-bright. "I hate you, and if I had a choice you'd die instead of him."

He leaves. Leaves her room, leaves their broken home. Pa is angry about this, angry at Jack, because Jack doesn't say why and she doesn't either and he thinks it's because of him dying.

She still doesn't say anything because she's fifteen and she wants to be selfish, just for a little bit longer, and when Jack is gone Pa clings to her so much more.

And she still can't save him.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Hotch hands in his retirement, finally, and everyone is shocked because the BAU is his life. He's proven that by never moving on, never moving up, even though they've had his name ready to slip into the Section Chief position for years, with Cruz looking onwards.

He knows they have other plans. They'll be fine without him. He knows they've been looking at Morgan for Unit Chief if he ever took Section Chief, and he knows that it won't be long now before the new BAU will look up to Morgan as their Section Chief. He'll be fantastic.

Because it is a new BAU. His name won't be on the door much longer and the conference room has more ghosts than souls at this point.

When Reid quietly slips in his request for retirement alongside Hotch's, they're floored. They suspect. They don't tell them.

They don't tell anyone who doesn't need to know. They tell the kids. They tell Jessica. They tell Cruz, or Reid does. Hotch stares at a point just above the Section Chief's ear and lists the people he's lost.

 _Elle, Gideon, Haley, Spencer, Aureilo, Spencer, SpencerSpencer._

Spencer's still at his side but Hotch looks forward and sees himself alone. He adds his own name to the list. His own, and Hal's.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Jack leaves his parents' home and he drinks until his body burns and he's left heaving on the sidewalk of some unknown street, his guts burning and Arelys limp on the floor. He thinks he's crying, or maybe it's just because he can't stand without the world trying to throw him right back down.

He tries to pick a fight. He blinks and he's alone and his knuckles are wet with blood. It's his own and there's grit on the nails. He clenches his fist, and Arelys says something that could be, _'Please stop'_ but more likely it's, _'Charlie's right.'_

He gets thrown out of somewhere so he finds a dark alley and slumps in it, and then he knows he really is crying but he'll be damned if he'll ring his parents and let them see him like this.

He doesn't remember calling anyone but his phone is in his hand and there's blood and vomit on the screen and the battery's gone flat. Suddenly, there's a shadow over him. He closes his eyes and hopes it's someone he can hurt like he's hurt.

"Jesus fuck, Jack, what the hell have you done?"

Uncle Dave.

Jack doesn't remember calling him but he looks up, and that's a mistake because the world beats him down again for daring to look anywhere else but to the ground. He reels, vomits, probably hits his hand against the rough brick of the pissy wall he's leaning against and there are hands on him, too many hands, not enough.

Cool hand on his forehead, brushing his hair back and a voice that's calm, telling him it's okay, let it out. Uncle Dave is never this nice and he's never this worried and that's what breaks Jack because it shouldn't be David Rossi holding him like this when he needs his Pa more than anything and he's not going to be there forever.

Arelys cries out because their hearts are breaking.

"We hurt, we hurt," she sobs, and she's sick too and he hates her weakness. "Help us."

"I'm trying," says Uncle Dave, and he's bewildered. "I know, son, I'm here."

"Don't call them," Jack says clearly, and then he passes out.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He drags Jack home, his home, and that's a fucking job and a half because the kid is splattered in filth and vomit and tears and he looks like he's spent the night trying to fight the world and losing.

He's not the kind of drunk that kids get when they're young and alive and ready to have fun. He's the kind of drunk that Rossi's more familiar with on older men, broken men; ones that have lost the good in the world and are determined to try and find it in the bottom of a bottle.

He remembers being that drunk.

"David," says Eris, and she's trying to be gentle with the limp form of Jack's Arelys but it's a job that Hal would be much more suited to. "We need to call them. At least one of them. Something's wrong here."

David Rossi thinks this and then he thinks of the pain in Jack's face and Arelys's voice, and he _knows_.

He calls Reid. Reid, not Hotch, because he needs to make a choice here and Jack doesn't need to wake up to the saintly Aaron Hotchner by his bed when he looks like he's been dragged backwards through hell by his own volition.

Reid comes even though Rossi doesn't say why and they stand by Jack's bed and Reid is quiet, so Rossi knows.

"Which of you is it?" he asks, even though the answer he's still half-expecting is, 'Neither.'

But he knows Hotch retired, he knows Reid has too; Aureilo won't meet his eyes and there's a bruise on the crook of Reid's arm that he's forgotten to hide even though a dark part of Rossi whispers that it should be second nature to him.

Reid just looks at him and Rossi thinks, _shit._ Then his mind is blank for a bit because he's the youngest of them.

The best of them. Rossi was never supposed to watch him be buried.

Then he thinks, _Aaron can't survive this._

"How long?"

"Five years is a generous estimate."

There are a thousand things he can't say and dozens he should and instead he says the only thing he can.

"How can I help?"

And then Spencer Reid rips his fucking heart out of his chest for the second to last time and says, "Take care of them when I can't. Please."

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Morgan knows something is up because JJ and Garcia had both ganged up and demanded they throw Reid and Hotch a retirement party, and neither of the normally reticent men had really argued the point. They're humouring the girls, being kind, even though Reid once 'accidentally' broke a vial of some noxious smelling gas in his home to avoid a birthday party JJ had planned for him.

Of course, Reid spends the whole time trying to impress Henry with card tricks even though Henry is twenty years old and really only feigning interest, and Hotch looks like he's at his own funeral, which is half-expected really because Hotch has never really done parties. Michael sits by his dad and looks relieved that he's not the one near Reid for once.

Charlie is silent and picks at her food and this isn't so odd either, because Charlie is Reid all over, pinwheeling from manic to pensive at the drop of a hat. Morgan hasn't decided if this is a character flaw or just a downside of being a Reid.

Jack's eyes are glassy. He doesn't look at his parents, and he doesn't speak to Charlie, and this is worrying.

Rossi laughs loudly to cover all the sounds the others aren't making, but Eris is quiet and doesn't even try to drop anything in anyone's drinks. And that's terrifying.

"Jesus guys, cheer up," Morgan snaps finally, and everyone looks at him. JJ confused, Garcia still grinning as though waiting for the punchline of a joke. Henry looks bored. Reid looks desperate. "This is a party, not a funeral."

It's the wrong choice of words. He didn't mean to say that. He was thinking it, but he wasn't going to say it.

Charlie begins to cry.

After a beat, Jack does too.

Reid stands and moves towards them but his face is pale and he stumbles.

Aureilo slumps over, slowly. Morgan watches him fall, watches his flanks heave twice, then still.

Everything moves very quickly after that.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Spence sways like he's drunk even though JJ's only seen him drink water tonight, and when Hotch and Jack both cry out and lunge towards him, JJ's already bracing herself.

He says he's fine and Charlie's still crying, so Will hugs her because everyone else is frozen, staring.

When Reid stops talking and then very calmly says, "Actually, I don't think I'm fine," JJ is already calling an ambulance and Hotch's hands are on his sides; now he's holding him; now he's lowering him to the floor and Spence is blank-faced and listless. She looks into his eyes as Hotch presses one hand to his throat and the other to his heart, and in them she sees their end. Aureilo's on his side on the ground, he has been this whole time, and Hal is standing over him with her hackles raised and snarling like she can chase away whatever threatens him.

"What the hell is going on?" Henry yells once Hotch is gone with Reid and they're in the car to meet them at the hospital. Charlie is with them because she'd run away from Jack like he'd become everything she's afraid of.

Will's knuckles are white around the wheel, but JJ can see his eyes flickering to Charlie in the rear-view mirror. "Don't shout," he says quietly, so quietly, quietly enough that they can hear Tait's ragged breathing from the space in front of Charlie's legs.

"He's dying," Charlie mumbles into the glass of the window, pressing her face against it and squeezing her eyes shut. "He didn't want you guys to know yet."

And JJ knows that they've lost something.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

The hospital smells like bleach and something sharp that stings his eyes, and Henry knows that this is the smell he'll think of whenever someone asks him what the worst moment of his life was.

"He's dying," Uncle Aaron says, and it's so much worse from him. It's realer.

And then he thinks of Jack crying; _Jack_ , the guy that had always faced the world and all it could throw at him and laughed in its face, and he realizes that everything he's feeling is a million times worse for Uncle Spence's son. And Charlie. Charlie as well, even though sometimes she can be cold and she didn't cry at all when her Grandma died even when Jack and Henry both cried buckets.

He looks at Daddy and he's hugging Mama close. They're both pale, but Mama looks like she's going to be sick. He looks at Michael, who's looking at him like he's their salvation.

And he reaches in his pocket and runs his thumb over the pack of cards Uncle Spence had abandoned and thinks, _that can't be the last trick._ _I wasn't even really paying attention._

He can't remember what his card was. Uncle Spence will. He'll ask him.

He might not be able to.

"Oh," he says, and he can't breathe.

Fi brushes her wings against his neck. "It was the five of hearts," she says softly.

He takes Charlie's hand with his left and his right he keeps in his pocket on the deck. When he gets home he'll take the five of hearts out and he'll lay it on the back of his phone and snap the phone case over it.

Because Spence has never left a trick unfinished before, so he won't die until he asks, _"Is this your card?"_ And he can't ask that without the card. That makes sense. That's building a theory based on prior evidence, twenty years of solid evidence.

Henry's always been logical about these things.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He gets better, but now Aaron can see the movement of time and every morning brings with it the potential for devastation.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He catches Spencer trying to reorganize the mountains of books in the study, and he doesn't have to tell him off because Hal beats him to it. Even Aureilo quails under the blistering lecture.

Spencer looks exasperated and doesn't answer, and Aaron tries to sympathize. It must be frustrating to list everything you once could do but now can't; it's hard to sympathize though, when his husband's breath catches and wheezes sometimes and if Aaron puts his ear against Spencer's chest when he gets into bed at night, he can hear his heart galloping unevenly even though all he did was get dressed.

Sometimes, Aureilo tries to keep up with Hal when they walk together and he always falls back to a walk, nonchalant, as though it's by choice. After this happens twice, Hal slows too.

"You had a heart attack, Spence," he says tiredly, pulling his husband close and holding him, just holding him. Treasuring it. "You have to slow down."

"This is slow," Spencer grumbles into his shirt. "I am slow. I'm doing everything, more than everything, they're asking me to. I'm organizing books, Aaron. Not running a marathon."

It's been six months since the day Spencer had calmly told him their time had become finite.

"You don't need to do it today," Aaron says firmly, and leads him away. Spencer lets himself be led. With a pained sigh, Aureilo follows.

"Don't I?" Spencer asks quietly, and Aaron can't answer.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He's helping Dad rake leaves in the backyard and chatting about mundane stuff, college, Molly, the weather, when Dad stops suddenly. Hal stands from where she was snoozing under the old tree by his childhood bedroom window and ambles over with worried eyes.

Dad looks at him, and Jack knows that he's going to say something that Jack's never going to be able to forget. He doesn't want him to. He does anyway.

"How do I go on without him?" Dad asks helplessly, and he looks so lost that Jack can't answer.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Spencer's lying in bed one night when Aaron rolls over suddenly and says, "I'm not ready," and he has the faintest memory of those words being said in the ambulance as well.

"Well, it's lucky we're not planning on going anywhere just yet," Aureilo tries to joke, but no one laughs.

"Jack and Charlie aren't ready either," Aaron continues, cruelly, as though Reid has a fucking choice. As though even if he was given a choice, he wouldn't pick the one that has him living long enough to see Jack get married or Charlie find herself finally. "Charlie will graduate high school in three years."

Charlie's set to graduate high school in a year, if she keeps up her current rate. Spencer has the impression that this is Aaron's compromise. An unsaid, _"You can't go anywhere until you see this milestone, at least."_ He's buying time.

There'll always be one more milestone to wait for.

"We'll see," Spencer says and Aaron nods as seriously as if Spencer's made him a promise.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Their house isn't quiet much anymore. Their weird extended family turns their hallway into a revolving door of gift baskets and well wishes and teary hugs and Charlie can't handle it.

Pa recovers for a while.

Then he gets worse. Then he gets better. It's like a roller coaster – moments when the scary bit is over and you can breathe but then a rise comes up and you're frozen screaming and the ground is hurtling towards you.

At some point, Charlie had stopped going on roller-coasters because it occurred to her that the only thing stopping them from crashing to the ground was a few frayed ropes of high tension wire and some rusty bolts, and all the statistics in the world couldn't make her feel safe after that.

Jack comes home a lot and they're not really the same as they were, but it's enough to know he's back. He's still her brother.

They're still a family.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

They have bad days.

There's a bad day when Spencer lashes out at the world, lashes out at them, because he's scared and frustrated and they're there. They're there and they love him and even if he strikes out, that won't change.

This is a bad day; he's in bed by noon and even reading is too tiring.

This is a bad day; Jack isn't home for a week and Charlie has a headache so she stays in her room and speaks to no one. It's a bad day because it's been seven months since they told Spencer Reid that he has five years to live; Aaron can count down to the last the days they have left because he plans to treasure each and every one of them.

It's a bad day because it's the last day.

Spencer Reid surprises Aaron Hotchner just one last time, and he does so by dying.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

It's the middle of the night and he's thirsty, so he gets up to get a drink. Aureilo grumbles, but he follows. They stay close these days. Now they know the cost of separation.

Aaron's hand reaches for the warm spot on the sheets and he lifts his head, but Spencer just smiles and says he'll be back in a minute.

He isn't.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

It's Aureilo who feels it first, sinking to his haunches and saying, "Oh." And then, "Should I get Aaron?" He can't shout because he hasn't the breath for it.

Spencer blinks and he sits down. Just sits, he doesn't fall. It's not dramatic. He puts the glass on the tile next to him and his hand on his hare. "I think so," he says, and closes his eyes because it hurts and he can't think. He's tired and it hurts and he's still thirsty.

His hand tightens on the hare and the hare doesn't move.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Tait sits bolt upright, and Charlie feels his alarm. "What?" she mumbles into her pillow, her head still aching.

"Pa's awake," Tait answers, and slips out the door. She follows.

They find him.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Aaron hears his daughter cry out for him. He moves faster than he's ever moved, and Hal still beats him there.

Charlie on her knees. Spencer on the floor. His back against the counter and his skin turned grey and loose and Aaron _knows_. He's been an agent longer than he hasn't been, so he takes control.

"Call an ambulance," he orders Charlie, and in the very next breath he calmly orders Spencer Reid not to die. Because Spencer has always, _always_ , followed his orders before and this won't be any different.

One hand to check the pulse that oozes sluggishly; the other resting on his hand. Their hands move together, rising and falling with Aureilo's breathing, and it's comforting because it means there's still time.

"Spencer, love, can you open your eyes?" he says, still calm, and Spencer doesn't react. His face slackens, slightly, and Aaron's seen that look in the past as he's falling asleep, but this time he knows there won't be any waking him if they let him go. The hand under his is pale, the nails bluish in the dim light, and his lips slowly colour to match.

"Time to be ready," Aureilo murmurs. Aaron wants to shake him and tell him so stop being so stupid. Instead he threads his fingers through his husband's so that Aureilo's warm fur is against his skin, and he thinks for a wild moment that this is the part where their daughter watches him administer CPR to her father on the kitchen floor and is haunted forever by the memory.

"We'll try if you ask us," Aureilo says next, and that's when Aaron realizes that it doesn't really matter what he needs anymore. Aureilo has always been strong, stronger than Aaron or even Hal, and now his voice is dull and weak and shattered and Aaron can't bear it.

It hits him. It hits him right then.

Spencer can't hear him, he's too gone. Aureilo can. And this is it.

"We love you," Aaron says quietly, and Charlie falls quiet. Hal whines. "It's okay."

Aureilo goes first but it's acceptable because even as the warm fur fades under his palm into gritty Dust, Spencer follows. They're not without each other for long. Gold on the floor, on Aaron, on Spencer and Charlie is crying, hugging Hal like she can't remember how to let go.

Hal howls just once, short and sharp and for the last time, because after this there'll never be reason to again. This is the last time, the final time. No matter how much he wants or needs, Spencer Reid is now forever beyond his reach.

Aaron wants everything to stop except the one thing that does and in the final moments of that bad day, he rests his lips against those of his husband's and whispers something that sounds almost like an apology.


	8. To Dust

**Chapter Eight: To Dust**

 ** _How much time is in the promise of forever?_**

 **.**

 **.**

There are downsides to an eidetic memory.

Charlie can remember every harsh word thrown her way, and there's been many. She can remember every fight with her parents, the few there have been. Her recollection for the spoken word is less than optimal, but she can still remember every hissed insult in Jack's direction, and those he returned.

She'll never forget watching Dad cradle Pa's body on the kitchen floor. She'll never forget the noise he makes as he holds his husband to his chest; the exact noise that a person makes when they lose something they absolutely cannot live without.

She'll never forget what it looks like as Aureilo, Pa's brave, handsome hare, takes one last shuddering breath and melts away into nothing but the Dust that holds the ghost of Pa's soul.

Hal howls and her voice cracks so it's more of a scream, short and sharp and fragile in a way that Charlie knows won't ever heal. Charlie can't bear the sound, so she picks Tait up and slips from the room even as the paramedics enter through the door she'd unlocked for them and gather around her parents. Her parents, plural, together, for this one final time.

She climbs into the bed that's still, somehow, warm with the memory of his body's warmth, curls up around his pillow, and tries to ensure that the night of his death doesn't override the memories of his life.

She might have cried but she isn't sure because Tait is breaking for her.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Aaron waits until ten o'clock because he wants to give his team, his family, the luxury of waking up one more time in a world that contains Spencer Reid.

He hasn't cried since they took his husband's body away, still coated with the remains of his daemon. He can't yet. Not yet. There's so much left to do.

Charlie called Jack; called him at some point during the hazy hours of the morning when everything had frozen and the world had turned insubstantial and cold. All Hotch knew was that when the sun had risen, he'd found Jack and Charlie huddled together like frightened rabbits _(not rabbits, not rabbits, nothing like that)_ kittens in his bed.

Hotch had walked into his bedroom. He'd looked at Jack. He'd looked at Arelys.

Then he'd walked back out and thrown up everything that was in his stomach; thinking perhaps he'd die from the pain of it, because nothing that hurt this much couldn't eventually be fatal.

But it's ten o'clock now which means that it's time to pick up the phone and begin the process of informing Spencer Reid's friends and family that he's dead.

He can do this. He just needs to remain… calm.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Hotch rings them at ten oh one and JJ knows this because she glances at the clock exactly as he, very calmly and in the exact same voice he'd perfected to tell families of victims that their loved ones were never coming home, informs her that at some point during the night Spencer Reid had done the impossible.

She thinks that she might have asked him if he was okay, but afterwards Will tells her that she'd said nothing of the kind, just blankly stared at the phone as though she'd forgotten how to use it.

He'd taken the phone from her, guided her to a chair, and as Hotch repeated his news and Will's face turned grey, she wondered how Spence could have possibly died without her somehow knowing.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Morgan's just taken a mouthful of oatmeal when the phone rings.

It's some sort of berry flavour. Three years ago, Reid had told him all about how most fruits in instant oatmeal were actually a mixture of apples and strawberry. Morgan had told him to shut up before he ruined oatmeal.

In the end, Reid had ruined oatmeal. It had just taken him a few more years.

When he hangs up he throws the food out, washes the bowl carefully, and then curls up on his couch with Naemaria in his arms and thinks about everything but what he's lost.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Hotch doesn't call her. Later, she finds out he couldn't, he'd broken before he'd reached her name on his speed dial, so when she opens the door to Morgan and sees his ashen skin, she isn't really expecting it.

But she's not stupid, Morgan's not the panicking type, and not enough time has passed from that terrifying wild drive to the hospital to find out that Spencer Reid had gone and tried to hide a _heart condition_ from them, his family, for her to have forgotten that fear.

"Is he alive?" she asks simply, and Tupelo makes a single, harsh cry that rattles her brain.

Morgan shakes his head.

And she shatters in his arms.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Dave."

Aaron sounds calm, at first. He sounds composed. It's his everyday voice. At first, Rossi suspects nothing. It's eleven in the morning.

Aaron goes to talk, to say something, and he stops. He falls silent and Rossi waits, somewhat impatiently, thinking longingly of a day spent pottering about in his garden, maybe working on his next book.

"Oh," says Aaron, as though something has just occurred to him. There's the sound of someone swallowed heavily, a rattling gasp.

Rossi's heart doesn't sink so much as it tries to bungee jump through his shoes and the floor below. "Aaron?" he asks cautiously. The idea of a peaceful day vanishes, and he's reaching for his keys before making a conscious decision.

"Oh fuck," Aaron says. He doesn't cry. Later, Rossi wonders if it all would have gone differently if he did. "He's gone, Dave. He's fucking gone. Oh my god."

And Rossi doesn't need to ask who.

He drives to their house that's never really going to be the same again and he thinks he might be speeding but every time he glances down at the dash, his vision blurs.

 _"_ _Look after them when I can't,"_ murmurs the ghost of Spencer Reid from the backseat, but Rossi refuses to acknowledge him just yet.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

It's four thirty in the afternoon when her phone rings.

"Prentiss," she answers breezily without checking the caller ID.

"Emily," Rossi answers, his voice uncharacteristically monotonous, and he called her Emily. Sergio's fur raises in a ridge on his back, tail fluffing up, an instant reaction to the bolt of fear that shoots through her at that.

She rattles off the list of people she can't handle this phone call being about and then tries to think which one is most likely.

It's Rossi calling, so he's obviously fine. Hotch and Reid have retired, they're safe. It's not Jack or Charlie or Henry or Michael, because one of their parents would be making this call.

"Oh my god, Morgan," she gasps, and she sees Clyde glance at her, do a double take, and then move quickly towards her office. She wonders what her face looks like right now. She's seen enough victims to hazard a guess.

Silence.

"Not Morgan?" she says, waving Clyde away and smiling weakly to try and reassure him. "You're gonna need to give me something to work with Rossi. I can't do Guess Who with you over this. Do we need to get on a plane?" She'll have to talk to Clyde, pull Margo from school...

"Emily, kiddo…" Oh god. A pet name. She holds the phone to her ear with her shoulder and begins looking up flights. "Hun, when's the last time you talked to Spencer or Aaron?"

Did he just call Reid _Spencer?_

Wait.

"Why?" she asks cautiously. She can taste the coffee she'd downed at lunchtime instead of a meal, and she's glad now that she didn't eat.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I thought they… I thought you'd have some warning. Emily, Spencer passed away last night."

She books the flight. She calls the school. She does not cry.

Not yet.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"I didn't even know he was sick," William Reid tells his wife when she wanders into the kitchen and finds him mourning a son he'd never taken the time to know. "He never told me."

Her daemon nuzzles Harback as the coyote huddles into himself, eyes hazy with age gone wide and glazed. The affectionate gesture takes the sting out of her next words.

"Did you ever ask?" she says softly, taking his hand.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

The next day comes. And the one after that. Time still passes.

It seems impossible, but the world still spins without him in it.

They don't bury him. He was almost buried once, and after Hankel he'd never been able to bear the thought of it, and that's fine because Aaron can't bear to drop another coin.

Aaron has him cremated and his ashes mixed with Aureilo's Dust. Together still.

Spencer wouldn't have wanted to be separated from his beloved hare, not even by death.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

There's a memorial. Jack talks a lot, about nothing in particular. And about everything. He puts it all into his speech, a father's love and protection and the sound of a laugh. He stammers and stutters and half-way through they can tell he's forgotten the words and he's just making it up as he goes along. They're not even sure he finishes where he meant to – he suddenly looks lost and broken and perilously close to tears and just walks off stage.

He's never been very good at speeches.

It's hard to celebrate a life when it doesn't feel real that that life is over.

Charlie gets up to talk and even though she could tell them in minute detail about the night Pa died, she goes completely blank on anything else to say.

Floating in her mind is the inscription on a child sized grave marker she'd glanced at in a cemetery once, and she says that instead.

"If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever," she mumbles, and no one hears her. She walks off stage and sits next to JJ, taking her hand under the table and focusing on not crying. Jack isn't sitting near her, because they'd sought comfort in each other on that final bad day but since then the memory of each other's anger had surfaced between them and made them stiff and awkward.

She wants to go to him but he doesn't look at her and besides, it hurts too much to look down and see Arelys and to think of the hare that's missing.

There are other speeches, ones that make people laugh and ones that make them cry. Charlie considers memorizing them all, these memories that these people have of her Pa and that's all that remains of him, but in the end she picks just one.

Emily stands up there and she smiles and there's grief in that smile, but love as well. She doesn't look at the audience. She looks slightly beyond them, and she's the only one who says goodbye to him now because she hadn't had the time the rest of them had had to adjust to the idea.

"You were my brother then," she says, and closes her eyes. "And you are still."

Charlie chooses that one because it reminds her that Pa had promised to never leave her alone if he could help it, and even now she's surrounded by the family he'd filled her life with.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Aaron doesn't speak because he's never been good with sharing, and Spencer's life with him is no exception.

Besides, everyone there knows how much they'd loved and how much they'd lost, and he doesn't need to stand in front of them all and restate it for the few who didn't.

The memorial is almost over, and with it Aaron's obligation to ensure that he's taken care of Spencer for the final time. He has food in front of him that he doesn't eat because he doesn't remember how to be hungry, and besides, he doesn't think he can eat around the weight of Spencer's wedding ring on a silver chain around his neck.

He's just waiting at this point. He waits and waits and thinks of what comes next, and Hal is silent at his side, acknowledging no one.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Aaron is the perfect host. He does everything he's supposed to, except the speech, but Rossi can grant him that leeway because the shocked vacant expression hasn't quite left his face yet and Rossi is pretty sure he's running on autopilot.

It becomes suddenly apparent about halfway through the memorial service that he's not so much running on autopilot as he is just quietly ignoring the world, and Eris clicks her beak nervously and presses close to the side of Rossi's head, ignoring his complaint about her blocking his ear.

"He's waiting for something," she says warily.

Rossi glances at him, for the fifth time in as many minutes. "He's grieving."

Eris doesn't look at Aaron. Her eyes are focused on Hal. "Is he? He doesn't look like he's just grieving to me. Hal hasn't spoken to one of us since Spencer died. Not a single one of us."

"She's grieving too."

Eris swivels her head and now she's looking at Jack, sitting between Henry and Will, and then at Charlie who's clinging to JJ like she's the only stable thing left in her life, and Rossi suddenly feels terrified of something without being entirely sure what that something is. Or maybe he does know, and he's just too damn stubborn to admit the possibility.

"She's disconnecting," Eris says finally. "She's disconnecting, Dave, and you know what Spencer would say if he was here. I can hear his voice now."

Rossi can hear him too, but not saying what Eris is thinking. _"Look after them when I'm gone."_

"Shut up," he snaps, before she starts channelling the deceased and begins rambling statistics about bereavement. "Don't."

Because Aaron Hotchner has never given up before, and Rossi will be damned if he lets him do it now.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Rossi corners him after the service, as he and Charlie make their slow way to the exit. Charlie is faltering, her steps slow and reluctant, unwilling to return to their empty home and the echoing remains of their lives.

He tries to smile, to reassure her, but how can he when it was always Spencer who'd done it previously and now he's alone and expected to raise a fifteen-year-old girl by himself?

He already knows he's not up to the job, and the beginnings of that failure are written all over Charlie's red-rimmed eyes and the manky way Tait's fur sticks out in unwashed tufts.

"I'm coming over," Rossi announces, and his eyes are narrowed. Aaron doesn't let any of his (admittedly mild, he doesn't really feel much of anything at the moment) dismay show at this sudden proclamation. "I'll stay over for a while, help you with things. Charlie could use the company."

He's using Charlie as an excuse to worm his way into Aaron's home to stop him from doing… what?

Aaron's not above using Charlie as well.

"She's just lost her father, Dave," he says quietly and sternly, putting a trace of the Aaron Hotchner of old in his voice. "She needs stability now."

Rossi hesitates, and Aaron knows he's won. "Alright," he says finally, reluctantly. "But you call me if you need anything and I'll be there in a heartbeat, either of you."

Aaron nods and has no intentions of doing anything of the sort.

By his side Hal stands with her head hanging low and eyes unheeding, and she doesn't even twitch a muscle in response to Eris hooting affectionately and running her beak through her thick ruff.

She just stares at the floor in front of her feet and waits.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

They go home. Barely hours have passed before Dad walks in and tells her to grab her things and get in the car.

"What do I need?" Charlie asks warily. Tait watches, silent, the slow sweep of his thick tail the only hint of their nerves.

Dad shrugs. He looks empty. He's looked empty a lot in the past week. "Anything. Everything. You don't need school things, just clothes. Whatever you use."

He wanders off and she slowly packs a bag. "Where do you think we're going?" she asks Tait.

He rumbles in his throat. "Maybe on a trip?" he suggests. "He must want to get away, out of the house. I heard him moving around in the attic before – the tents are up there. Maybe we're going camping? I like camping."

Charlie looks out the window at the dark swirl of forbidding clouds and frowns. "It's cold to go camping," she says softly, and fear squeezes at her heart. "And it won't be the same without… without Pa telling us about all the plants and the soil and…" She closes her eyes to stop them burning.

Tait mewls in shared pain. "We know all that stuff," he says finally. "We remember it all. We can tell Dad all about it instead. It will be kinda like having Pa back… he'd have liked that we remember it all."

She packs her school stuff just in case.

"It's not going to ever be the same, is it?" she asks her daemon as she zips up her bag with an air of finality and closes the bedroom door behind her.

He doesn't answer but that's okay because she didn't need an answer anyway.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

They don't go camping.

Dad pulls up outside Jack's student housing and she looks at the peeling front door of the building, and then back at him warily. "Is Jack coming?" she asks, hugging her bag close to her chest.

Dad shakes his head and doesn't look at her. "Go in and see him, please Charlie, love."

She freezes. Hal hasn't moved a muscle in the backseat, and Dad hasn't turned the car off. "I don't want to," she chokes out around the lump in her throat. "I don't… I won't."

He looks at her wearily, and he's so drained that she wants to climb into his arms and pretend it's years ago and she's a little girl again. Back when he could protect her from anything, even himself.

"Please," he says, and it's so close to begging that she unsnaps her seatbelt with a hand that shakes and opens the door, unable to ignore that tone. "Charlie."

She stops and looks at him, hoping that he's about to say, _"Get in, we're going home,"_ or, _"Actually, we are going camping!"_ or even, _"This is all a bad dream, now wake up and say goodnight to Pa."_

Instead he says, "I love you. You and Jack. You know how much I love you, don't you?"

"Yes," she whispers, and closes the door between them. Tait is pressed against her legs, growling with fear and her bag is heavy, the wind whipping at the thin dress pants she'd worn to her pa's memorial and it's all a joke, just a stupid joke, and Dad won't drive away and leave her here, will he?

But he does.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and fumbles at the buttons, trying to call Uncle Rossi, Auntie JJ, anyone, someone just so she isn't alone and they can stop him, bring him back to her, but the screen warps and smears under the tears that are heating her cheek to fall from her chin, or maybe it's the rain.

She wipes the screen on her shirt and looks at it and she's hit the wrong button, the wrong speed dial and the sight of it is the final thing that breaks her.

 ** _Calling Pa_**

He said he'd always answer.

The line rings out and she screams.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Will watches as Henry and Michael quietly pick at their dinner. They're all drained by the harrowing events of the day.

JJ isn't even pretending to eat, and when Will glances at her, she shakes her head and leaves the room, a spot of pink high on each cheek. He's seen her grieve before, seen it plenty, but it never gets easier.

It never should.

He's grieving too because Spencer was just as much a part of their family as anyone, even more so perhaps. As Charlie had grown older and started to look more and more like JJ in the shape of her smile and the sound of her laugh, it had become oddly comforting to come home and find the two of them watching or a movie or giggling over some book the quiet girl had brought over to show her.

He wonders if that will still happen now. He'll miss it if it stops. JJ will miss it more.

The muted silence in their house is suddenly shattered by the sound of someone attempting to knock their way through the front door, the wood rattling under the force of the blows.

Will jumps up and moves quickly into the front hall, JJ joining him. Mia follows, her ears perked and listening. JJ watches her, hand hovering over her hip as though looking for a gun she hasn't carried in six years.

"It's Jack," Mia says suddenly, her eyes widening. "And Charlie. They're upset."

Upset is one word, but it's not the word Will would have used when he opens the door and Jack almost tumbles through into his arms, dragging a Charlie long past the point of hysteria. Their daemons follow, alternating between racing around their legs and shaking uncontrollably, leaving trails of rainwater on the carpet.

"Dad's gone," Jack yells. Charlie just stares. "He's gone, he's fucking gone. He dropped Charlie out the front of my place and took off!"

Will looks at JJ, and on her face he can see the remembered fear of a nightmare she'd long put behind her.

"I'll call Dave," she says calmly, reasonably. Her voice is soothing. Will thinks that it's going to take a good deal more than that to break through the shock Charlie is clearly already deep into, and Jack is quickly following. "Will, can you make some calls?"

Make some calls. Charlie goes, if possible, paler. These kids aren't silly, they've grown up around law enforcement and veiled messages. Even Michael would have known what 'make some calls' means in this context and he's only thirteen.

Police. Hospitals.

Morgues.

Charlie clings to JJ as they move towards the phone, Jack just looks lost, and everyone in the room avoids looking at the picture of Rosaline smiling on the wall.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Rossi's phone goes off and by the end of this week he's going to have a fucking phobia of his ringtone.

JJ tells him the news in a calm voice that nevertheless is dripping with an unspoken threat of _find him fast, find him now._

In the car, a voice in his mind murmurs, _I told you so,_ in a smug tone. Eris repeats the cold words from the passenger seat. He tells her to shut up, but she still nips at his hand with barely restrained affection.

He drives to Aaron's and he knows he's not going to be there, but he needs to check something anyway. He needs to know just what exactly they're in for if Rossi fails; Reid's not even a week cold and Rossi's already nearly failing him.

He's not the kind of man to accept failure, especially not of this magnitude.

"What do you think the combination is?" he asks Eris when they're standing in Hotch's study and looking down at the number pad. Eris shifts her wings thoughtfully.

"If Reid set it, something complicated and annoying," she says unhelpfully. Rossi rolls his eyes at her and glances around the room; at the books of every shape and topic, maps and diagrams covered in Reid's scrawling handwriting, the low couch set under the window that's scattered with rough black fur and, if Rossi looks closer, no doubt finer tan hairs as well.

"Reid wouldn't have set this," he says finally, thinking of his friends and everything he knows about them. "Aaron's too much of a control-freak to let Reid be responsible for this with children in the house, especially a kid with Reid's brain."

Eris blinks and the answer comes to them both at once. "Reid overthinks things. So does Charlie," she says, and Rossi is already trying out codes. "It will be simple."

One fails. Another fails. Third times the charm. The gun safe beeps and opens. 4273.

Hare.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

That night is the longest night Henry's ever experienced.

He hovers back, unwilling to intrude on the siblings' shocked grief, and unable to process Mama's fear. He knows what they're not saying, they all do. Maybe not Michael, but he's the only one.

Uncle Aaron missing. And Daddy gone to find him with Uncle Dave. No one has yet.

He waits until his mama leaves the den where Jack and Charlie are sitting in silence, and clears his throat to get her attention. She turns and sees him on the stairs, and her face is chalk-white.

"Henry," she says, and moves over to him, wrapping her arms around him. He hugs her back without a thought. She's shaking against him. "I thought you'd gone to bed."

He shrugs. "Couldn't exactly sleep with… you know." He tilts his chin in the direction of the living room. "No news?"

Mama shakes her head.

He has to ask. Someone has to ask. Charlie and Jack can't, or won't, but he needs to know. He slips one hand in his pocket and rests it on his phone, tapping his fingers against the hard case that covers the playing card safe inside. "Is he… he's not coming back, is he?"

She flinches away. "Don't make assumptions without proof," she snaps, and he can hear Uncle Spence in her voice when she talks like that. "It's only been a few hours."

It ends up being much longer than that.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Twenty-nine hours since she last saw Dad.

Charlie slips off the couch and makes her way up the stairs of Auntie JJ's house, making sure to walk on the sides so they don't squeak. Tait follows, needing none of her care to stay silent. She can hear Jack's deep breathing from the living room floor on an inflatable mattress, finally asleep.

She's blessedly numb, the fear and panic of the previous day fading away and leaving her hollow. She thinks it might be an improvement. What good are emotions when they stop her brain from working and make it hard to form theories, to process outcomes and possibilities and come up with the probabilities of this day (days) ending positively?

She's better off without them. Just logic, facts. Things that Pa has- _had_ -spent his life seeking.

She taps on Henry's door and she knows he's awake because there's a sliver of light from the bottom of the door.

"What's wrong?" he asks, lowering the book he's reading and staring at her with concern furrowing his brow. It's a softer look on him that it is on Jack. When Jack is scared his face goes all tight and tense, like he's going to react by lashing out. On Henry, the look is kinder, more reassuring.

"If Dad doesn't come home, can I stay here with you?" she asks, and his face crumples with shock and then pain at the question. Emotions again. Even Henry is a slave to them.

"Absolutely," says a placid voice near her ear, Filimay fluttering by her shoulder. "You know Mama would have you in a heartbeat. But he'll come home. You'll see."

She sounds so sure that for a moment, Charlie is almost convinced.

But her parents have let her down before.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

In the end, it's just over fifty hours. Charlie could tell them how long down to the minute, but no one asks.

And it's Jack that works it out.

He takes Charlie to their home and tells her to _look_. Look for what's there but more importantly, look for what's missing.

Look for what Dad took with him when he ran from his family, his friends, his loss.

But in the end, it's Jack who finds it.

He rings Uncle Dave because he knows where Aaron Hotchner has gone to mourn the death of the man he'd sworn to love forever, and he can't go there because if goes Charlie will follow. And he may know where he's gone, but he's not a profiler, and he doesn't know what they'll find when they get there.

Charlie's already seen one parent die.

"I know where he is," he says as soon as Uncle Dave answers. He stands in the attic, looking down on a battered box with _'Jack's stuff'_ written on the side in Pa's handwriting, the colourful books and toys filling it. The one that isn't in there that should be.

When he hangs, up he feels lost, because once again all he has left to do is wait.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

It's a disturbingly idyllic scene when Rossi pulls the car up outside the holiday cabin and Eris dives out the door and wheels about overhead. Pine trees, flowers, the muddy cobbles and puddles just begging for a kid in yellow gumboots to jump in them. Postcard picturesque.

He doesn't trust it at all. He's seen enough to know that the most beautiful places have the darkest secrets.

He hopes to god this isn't one of them.

Aaron's car is out the front. There's a leaf on the windshield. No answer when he knocks on the door. No movement when he peers through the windows.

He's really too damn old to be kicking in doors, but he didn't think to bring Morgan with him. Maybe he should have. He's also too damn old to be so scared his heart is trying to hammer its way through his ribcage, like it's offering him a suggestion on how to deal with the door between him and his oldest friend.

He's too damn old to be burying friends that are twenty years younger than him, but look how that worked out.

"If I break my hip doing this," he says glumly to Eris, and settles back ready to slam into the sturdy wood. "Let me die out here so Morgan can't tease me about it for the rest of my living days."

Humour is a refuge.

"You know, I can break a window," she offers nervously, landing on the porch railing and clicking her talons on the wood.

"Please don't. I would like my deposit back."

Rossi and Eris turn as one to find Aaron standing behind them, looking drawn and miserable and considerably not dead; Hal by his side as always.

"Oh, you bastard," Rossi says, the fear being replaced by an anger that's fiercely satisfying now he can let himself feel it. "You fucking rat-bastard."

But Eris swoops down and presses her head against Hal's leg, shaking against her fur and saying everything he isn't.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Why?" is all Rossi asks him, and there's an anger in his eyes that Aaron knows he's going to have to face in Charlie and Jack's eyes as well when he returns home, and that he deserves every last minute of their fury.

He answers truthfully.

"I've been a father for twenty-two years and a husband for sixteen. And he's gone now. I couldn't be a father until that sunk in, and I'm no longer a husband. I needed to grieve."

He thinks of the book he'd brought here, the simple child's book that was the first thing Spencer had given Jack. Given him.

Their holiday at this cabin; Jack stumbling about on legs too unsteady to hold him for long _(this was a mistake, Aaron. He hates me)_. Jack and Spencer in the mud _(they're being wonderful)_ , Spencer reading to him _(whenever you feel alone, remember)_ , sleeping on the floor in front of the fire so his nightmares wouldn't wake their son _(there's nothing wrong with me)_.

Falling asleep with Jack in his arms while reading him a story.

Falling in love _(you've become my all)_.

"He's gone, Dave," he repeats, and he can't stop the tears that have been over a week coming. "I'm alone."

"We're alone," Hal corrects him, the first words she's spoken all week, and she's wrecked, her voice a shadow of its former richness. Half of what it should be without the hare by her side.

Dave steps towards them. For a moment Aaron thinks he's going to hug him or hit him, and he can't handle either right now. It will be the straw that shatters the thin control he's still holding over himself, even as tears betray him.

"Not alone," he murmurs. "Your kids need you. Your family needs you, and that includes me. You don't get to quit."

There's a layer of fear to his anger that Aaron takes a moment to register. "You checked the gun safe."

"No shit. You took his gun."

Hal shakes her fur out, and there's a promise of the return of life in her dull eyes. "He had no intention of using it. He thought he might, but he never would."

"I know." Dave is looking intently at him and Aaron knows that his mourning alone period has come to an end. "If you were going to use it, you would have brought your own."

Aaron remembers Caroline and the pain in Dave's eyes by her grave. Maybe he's not as alone as he first thought. "I don't know how to go back."

Back to his home, back to his empty bed. He's not sure which he's referring to.

Dave shrugs and now he does hug him. It's a quick hug, and awkward, but Aaron feels for a moment the beat of his heart in his chest and it occurs to him that his didn't stop the night that Spencer's did, even if it felt like it. "Don't. Go forward instead. And probably soon, because I think Jack has aged twenty years in the past two days, and JJ is going to skin you alive."

Aaron nods. He already knew when he woke this morning that it was time to go, that he'd stayed away too long. His head clears, the mindless fog of the past week still there, still encompassing, but thinning just enough that he can think past it, to the two people he still has left, the ones that need him more than Spencer's ghost does right now.

He can't stay here to pay homage to a memory when the living need him more.

He looks back at the cabin, the recollection of two muddy faces grinning at him. _"Jack wanted to play toads,"_ says a whisper from the past.

"Goodbye, Spencer," he replies softly, letting the wind take the words and throw them out into the world to whomever is listening. "I'll see you again."

His future hasn't changed from that day sixteen years ago when he'd stood in front of a man and vowed to spend their lives together. And they had – even if it turned out that time was much shorter than any of them had known it was possible for it to be.

It had taken the cabin to remind him, the pain of times long past, the promise of a future still.

This isn't an end. Spencer had promised him that day that it wasn't.

 _"_ _Aureilo and I, as one singular being, in this moment vow to take you and Halaimon as our partners and our soul, throughout this life and into the next, for longer than we may live."_

The hare and the wolfdog, irrevocably entwined still.

They'll run together again.

 _What though the radiance which was once so bright_

 _Be now for ever taken from my sight,_

 _Though nothing can bring back the hour_

 _Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;_

 _We will grieve not, rather find_

 _Strength in what remains behind;_

 **William Woodsworth** ** _, Splendour in the Grass_**


	9. Our Brothers

**Chapter Nine: Our Brothers' Keepers**

 _ **Sometimes, the hardest part of being a brother is endless forgiveness.**_

 **.**

 **.**

 _"_ _...the thing with brothers is, you're supposed to take turns being the keeper. Sometimes you get to sit down and be the brother who is kept."_

 **Orson Scott Card** , _**Ender's Shadow**_

 **.**

Uncle Sean is visiting when the phones go off.

It's never good news when both of his parents' phone go off at once, so Jack tries to hide his face before they can see how disappointed he is. They're supposed to be going to the movies, Spencer promised, all four of them. He _promised_.

Arelys is worse at hiding her feelings than Jack is, so she slinks to the ground and her ears flop, and Jack can see Spencer frowning even as he answers his phone. Aureilo tries to cheer her up by boxing at her ears, but she just looks at Jack and trembles.

"Why the long face, kiddo?" Uncle Sean asks, leaning out of his chair to smile at Jack. He's not a good smiler, it's all awkward and forced, like Spencer when Daddy tells him off about eating junk and he has to pretend to be happy about it so Jack doesn't get 'wrong ideas.'

His teachers are always talking about having 'wrong ideas' like ice cream for breakfast or staying up till midnight, but Jack's pretty sure Spencer's never been wrong, so his ideas can't be too bad.

Jack hasn't answered so Sean scoots out the chair and sits on the floor next to him with his legs crossed and his otter daemon drooped in his lap like a cooked noodle. Jack catches her eye and she winks, and he giggles. "Looking forward to the movie?" Sean tries again, and this time Jack figures he should say _something_.

"We won't go now," he says shortly, because Uncle Sean doesn't know how things go around here, and his parents are still on their phones so it's up to Jack to explain it to him. "They have to go to _work_."

He says _work_ like other kids say homework or vegetables, and he's horrified to feel his eyes getting all stingy and wet. Only babies cry, and only really stupid babies cry in front of their uncle who doesn't visit very often and might visit less if Jack cries.

"Oh," Sean says softly, and looks up to where Dad is pacing in the next room.

Spencer pops back in, Aureilo at his feet, and there's a sad look to his face even though he smiles. "Jack…"

"I know…" Jack says sulkily. His stomach hurts, like it does when he's really sad or angry, and sometimes he doesn't know which. Arelys does though, and she stamps her hind leg down hard on the floor and glares.

"Hey!" Uncle Sean says really loud, and Jack almost jumps out of his skin with shock. "How about me and Jack hang out while you guys go to work? We can have our own movies here, just us. Uncle-Nephew bonding time!" He smiles again, and this smile is actually happy.

 _Movies with Uncle Sean? Yeah!_

Jack bets that Uncle Sean doesn't know any of the rules that his parents have about watching movies. He might even let them watch movies from the _top_ shelf, the one that Jack can't reach.

"Please!" he gasps, jumping up and giving Spencer his best _I want this_ face. It wouldn't work on Daddy, not anymore, but Spencer is still easily sucked into it. "Please, Spencer! I don't want to go to Auntie Jessica's – and we'll be really good!"

One of Spencer's eyebrows twitches and does that thing that Dad's usually does. It's a weird look on him. "You'll both be good, will you?" he asks, and now his mouth is twitching too and Aureilo is sniggering.

"Absolutely," says Uncle Sean, copying Jack's pleading expression.

Jack can barely contain his excitement when both his parents agree, even if Dad doesn't look happy about it at all.

 _This is going to be awesome._

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Okay, so it turns out Uncle Sean does know some rules, like the bath and pyjamas one before he's allowed to settle in the living room with his duvet and a bowl of buttered popcorn that Arelys gets fur in.

Sometimes though, Jack's found that by being really good at following the rules can help make people who don't know them all think that you're really good at following _all_ the rules. Like the 'no movies from the top shelf' rule.

"It's okay, Uncle Sean," he assures him, making sure Arelys is looking wide-eyed and innocent as well. It's hard to distrust Arelys when she's all fluffy and sweet-looking. "They're only up there so _Henry_ doesn't get to them, not me. He's much littler."

Uncle Sean doesn't look convinced. "Are you sure you don't want to watch one of these?" he asks, pointing to Jack's shelf. His eyes are darting along the spines, reading them all, and Jack can tell he's not looking forward to watching 'Finding Nemo' at all. "These look… fun."

"They're boring," Jack announces, and there's a thrill of being right in his chest when Sean nods slightly and looks back up to the top shelf. "They're kid stuff. I like horror movies better, I watch them _all_ the time."

Arelys leans against him and talks, really softly, soft enough that Sean and Par don't hear. "Jack, I don't think we like scary movies," she whispers. "Remember when we got scared of the clowns in Dumbo? What if they're scarier than that?"

"They won't be," he reassures her. "And we were five then. We're older now, we won't get scared as easily." Besides, Elliot is always talking at school about the movies he watches, and Jack wants to see them too. Remembering the title of one, he raises his voice so his uncle can hear him, "Can we watch The Ring?"

Sean slides the DVD down, and Arelys mutters something under her breath about them getting in trouble. "Not if you don't blab," Jack mutters back. "Uncle Sean's an adult – we won't get in trouble if an adult lets us."

"Huh. I didn't think Aaron was cool enough to let his kid watch horror movies," Uncle Sean says eventually, opening the case, and Jack knows he's won. "Guess he's finally removed the stick from his... never mind."

"This is going to be so cool," Jack says, and the popcorn almost tips out the bowl as he bounces with excitement.

Arelys hides her head under the covers and groans.

She's such a worrywart.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

It's dark. It's almost completely dark except for a flickering light under the crack of his door, and Jack needs to _pee_.

"I need to pee," he whispers to Arelys, his eyes locked on that light, and she sighs.

"I know," she says. "Just _go_. I told you not to watch that stupid movie."

"I'm not scared," he snaps, and just to prove it he slides out of bed and pads towards the door quietly. He's _not_ scared, not even a little. It was just a movie and it wasn't real, and Uncle Sean is in the guest room right up the hall and _it's all fine._

The wood of his door is cool under his hands when he touches it, glancing back at Arelys. Her eyes are just visible, black and shiny in the dark, and he can almost see her shaking. Okay, so she's a little scared.

Jack isn't though.

There's another sharp reminder in his belly about how much he needs to pee, so he slides the bedroom door open and peers out. Glances at the bathroom; all clear.

Glances up the hall to where Uncle Sean is asleep, and finds himself facing the flickering screen of a TV on the dresser through the open door, static making the light dance unevenly on the walls.

"Uh…" Jack says, his mouth going dry.

In the movie, you didn't die until seven days after you watched it. It hasn't even been seven hours yet.

"I didn't watch it," Arelys says from behind him, and he can feel her fear thick and choking in the back of his throat. "You did. She's going to come for you, not me."

Another look at the screen and it hums and goes black for a second. That TV set has always been broken.

But maybe it's not just broken tonight. Maybe she's going to come early.

There's a massive galloping _thump_ in his chest as his heart almost stops and he slams the door shut and bolts back to the bed, diving under the covers in a wild flurry of his and Arelys's limbs. "If she comes for me, she gets you too!" he gasps to Arelys, and she makes a sobbing noise and scrambles under his pillow, her form flickering slightly.

"Block the door!" her muffled voice says from under the pillow.

"I'm not getting out of bed," he hisses, squeezing his eyes shut and silently promising that he'll never lie again if only she doesn't come for him and kill him all gross like the girl in the cupboard. Watching that movie was a _stupid_ idea.

And he still needs to pee.

Uncle Sean is never going to visit again after this.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Jack stares at the bed and tries not to cry. Arelys looks from the bed, to Jack's pyjamas, and shrinks down all small and scared. They can hear Uncle Sean moving around downstairs, probably getting breakfast ready, and Jack's face is hot and red and he _can't_ let him see this.

"Uh oh," she says, and there's footsteps on the stairs. "Hide them! Quick!"

"Help me," he replies, trying desperately to drag the sheets off the bed, but he's not quick enough.

"Morning, kiddo," Uncle Sean says cheerfully, throwing open the bedroom door. Jack freezes. Arelys freezes.

Uncle Sean's face freezes, the smile going strange and forced. Then he looks sick.

Jack bursts into tears, dropping the sheets from where he'd barely managed to get them halfway to the closet and bunching his fists into his eyes in shame.

No one says anything and the only noise is the sound of Jack's hiccupping sobs, each one of them hurting as it forces its way out of his throat. "I'm suh-orry," Jack gasps eventually, and he feels like he's going to puke and add to the mess.

Arelys is awful at keeping secrets, and now she's crying too and her fur is all yuck just like his sheets and clothes. "We were scared and if we went to the bathroom the lady was going to get us because we watched the tape," she bawls. "Please don't leave because we're babies. We won't do it again – we promise!"

Uncle Sean doesn't say anything, just shakes his head and licks at his lips all nervous. Jack looks at him and he knows he's in so much trouble – Daddy only ever goes quiet like this when Jack has been really, really bad.

"I have to call your Dad," Uncle Sean says, eventually, and almost runs out of the room. Jack stops crying, more confused than anything now.

Why isn't he in trouble?

A quick look at Arelys and she looks just as confused as he is. "We can probably hear him if we're quiet?" she suggests. Jack nods and they follow warily. Standing close to the stairs, Uncle Sean's voice is easily heard. Especially when he shouts.

"You didn't tell me he wets the bed, Aaron... I went in there and he was bawling and trying to hide his sheets so he didn't get in trouble. What the fuck, man? Why did he think he was going to get in trouble?"

"Why's he mad at Daddy?" Arelys asks, itching at her fur. "You're the one that made a mess." Jack shrugs, just as confused.

"Don't tell me to calm down. I would have thought you of all people… alright. Alright. Damnit, Aaron, I don't know why he did it. Arelys said they were scared from the movie…"

"Uh oh," Arelys says again, and Jack groans.

Now he's _sure_ that he's in trouble.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Jack always tries to be on his best behaviour when Uncle Sean visits because Dad is always _way_ more likely to lose his temper when his brother is here. He kinda understands that – sometimes Charlie can be so annoying that he wants to shout and scream at her as well. Like when she always wants to play with his stuff even though she's way too little to understand it, and how she follows him and his friends around when they're trying to have fun.

It's really annoying and Jack supposes that having an adult brother is probably a little like having a kid sister, except that they're boring as well as annoying.

Uncle Sean didn't used to be boring, but he's gotten a lot less fun since he got in trouble for encouraging Jack and his friends to break the neighbour's window.

Jack still stands by the opinion that it wasn't really Uncle Sean's fault. After all, they were already hitting the rocks with the baseball bat before he went out there and caught them… he just didn't tell them to stop.

And maybe gave them tips on how to make the rocks go further.

… It was fun though.

The end result was the same; now Jack has to be perfectly good when Uncle Sean visits, and it _sucks_.

Charlie's usually follows Jack around the house when they're home, especially when they're all outside like this with Dad cooking lunch on the grill, but she's not today. Her and Tait are huddled together, crouched over something dull no doubt, ignoring everyone. She does that a lot these days, so Jack doesn't see much strange about it. He hopes she does more of it, and leaves him alone.

His parents and Uncle Sean are by the grill, and Jack is _bored_. He can't have his friends over because they still think Uncle Sean is the coolest ever and Jack doesn't want them to realize how boring they have to be so he'll keep visiting without getting in trouble. Arelys is being dull as well, all cranky and bitey because she's bored too.

If he's miserable, Charlie may as well share in that.

"I'm bored," he tells her, flopping onto the ground next to her and trying to see what she's playing with. There's a crashing in the bushes next to them, a monkey shaped Tait tumbling down with a handful of leaf-covered sticks in his paws. He drops them in a jumbled pile next to her, before vanishing again. "Why are you playing with leaves?"

"We're not playing," she replies absently. "Sorting. They're all dissimilar. These are simple leaves, and these are compound, and pertiolated are here…"

He stares at her. "You're so weird."

She flashes a quick glare at him, before looking over his shoulder. Her gaze drops instantly, expression turning blank.

"Hey," Uncle Sean says, crouching next to them and grinning, examining Charlie's piles. Jack almost groans with horror.

Charlie's in one of her weird moods, and she's going to be _odd_. He tries to catch Dad or Pa's attention, but they're both talking intently about something and their daemons are sleeping and _oh god please don't be weird for once, Charlie._

"Hi," Jack says with forced excitement, hoping that if he can sounds _really_ excited, Charlie might pick up on that.

Charlie doesn't look up from her leaves.

"So, how old are you now, Charlie?" Uncle Sean asks, and he's still smiling. That will stop. Lately, a lot of people don't smile much around Charlie.

Jack remembers when she was cute and babbly and not weird. Maybe he'd been wrong when he'd thought he wanted more of quiet, reserved Charlie… babbly, happy Charlie would be good right now.

"She's six," he says, because she's not going to answer. Tait reappears, hovering in the bushes and watching Charlie attentively. His form flickers, becoming smaller and spotted, and he crouches down. Jack can only see him now if he squints.

A cat, of some kind. Maybe.

"Six! Wow. You're so big now! Are you at school yet?"

Silence except for the rhythmic shuffling of dry leaves and sticks. The only movement is Charlie's hand, picking up a leaf, putting it in the pile, doing it again.

Jack pushes back a hot rush of anger. She's going to ruin _everything_.

"Of course she's at school," Jack answers again. "She's really, really clever. They wanted to put her up a grade but Pa wouldn't let them and…" Uncle Sean is frowning.

"Isn't Charlie going to talk to me?" he asks. His voice sounds strained now, and he's looking over at Dad. He's getting upset. Jack knew that Charlie was going to upset him.

Arelys is over by the bushes stamping her foot and Jack can hear a hissing growl from Tait. They're probably going to fight if Charlie keeps being stupid, and that will get them all in trouble. Great.

"She won't talk," Jack says, folding his arms. Maybe he can prove that it's just Charlie who's strange, not him… "She doesn't talk to strangers anymore."

Uncle Sean's daemon laughs. "But we're not strangers!" she says, standing on her hind legs and twitching her whiskers. "We're family, silly."

"Come on, hey," Uncle Sean says, and his voice is growly now, like he's frustrated. He reaches over and knocks her hand gently away from the leaves. "Come on kiddo, talk to me." Tait rumbles.

Mistake. Jack could have told him that. Charlie shrinks back and tucks her knees to her chest with her face pressed into her knees, arms wrapped around her head. There's a loud shriek from the bushes and Arelys and Tait tangle until Tait shifts big and snarls. They come apart, Arelys bolting back to Jack and Tait shifting into a crow and flapping into the air.

"She'll stay like that now," Jack says dully, seeing Sean reel back and look shocked. "Like a squashed bug." He can see Dad and Pa watching now, Dad handing the tongs to Pa and moving over towards them with Hal following. Great. Now everyone is going to be pissy.

"Stop it," Jack hisses, as Uncle Sean stands, brushing dirt off his knees, and walks towards Dad. Dad's face is stressed, he's seen Charlie doing her bug impersonation. He always gets stressed when she does it; Pa and Auntie JJ handle it a lot better. "Come on, Charlie. He won't visit if you be too freaky, and he always brings cool stuff for us to see."

She ignores him, her arms tightening around her knees. There's an angry cawing from the roof and a stick hits the ground next to him. Stupid daemon.

He can hear Dad and Uncle Sean talking in low, angry voices. They're arguing. Again. At least this time, it's Charlie's fault.

It'll end the same way it always does. Uncle Sean will storm out because Dad calls him immature or reckless and he won't show up for months and months, until one day Jack comes home from school and he's back. They've asked Dad before where Sean goes when he's not here, but Dad never answers. Arelys thinks he might an agent too, but a secret one, doing spy stuff. It does run in the family.

Snippets of their argument float over to Jack, and he can see Charlie tilting her head to listen as well. He kicks at the leaves to show his annoyance with her, knowing she won't care anyway. She'll just fix them up as placidly as before.

"…. Talking… I don't know… Why?"

"Just be patient… strangers…" Dad is moving his hands about as he talks, something he doesn't do often. Only when he's getting upset, which is something that Uncle Sean does to him a lot. Or Pa; when he's in a mood he's real good at making Dad mad. Some of their words are muffled, and Jack can't make them out. He looks about for Arelys, but she's back sulking in the shrubs. He can see her long ears in the leaves.

Uncle Sean's next words aren't muffled at all.

"Jesus, Aaron, it's not my fault she's retarded."

Charlie's head jerks up and she stares at Jack, her brown eyes wide with shock. There's no trace of her usual mildness anymore. Jack stares back, his gut twisting painfully and shock sending a cold thrill down his spine. Now it's Hal who snarls.

"Do you know what that means?" Jack asks, because he's never really sure just what Charlie does or doesn't know. And he wants to know if she knows this particular word before he can work out how he feels.

She nods, very slowly, and her eyes go all bright and runny.

Shit.

Dad isn't saying anything anymore, he's looking at them with his face white and surprised, like he's trying to tell if they heard that or not. Jack gets up slowly and walks over to them. He's glad Pa didn't hear what Uncle Sean said. Pa doesn't like stuff like that.

Uncle Sean's gone grey. Sometimes, Jack says stuff without thinking and gets in trouble, especially if he's hurt other people's feelings. But his teachers say that even saying sorry doesn't always fix things once you've said it, so you should try not to say the bad things at all.

Sean's an adult and he should know that.

"Jack…" Dad begins, but Jack looks straight at Uncle Sean and cuts him off.

"I don't think I like you anymore," he says quietly, and turns back to his sister.

No one says anything as he takes Charlie's hand and leads her inside. She won't cry properly until she knows that no strangers can see her, and he can tell she wants to cry.

Adults are supposed to know better.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

It's not long after that that Charlie stops talking at all, and Jack can't help but suspect it's a little bit his fault. After all, his sister is the third smartest person he knows, even if most of it is useless and she still can't colour in between the lines properly, and if she's that clever than surely she knows what he's thinking.

She's the one with the eidetic memory, but in the weeks following the first day she gets out of bed and doesn't say good morning, he remembers every time he told her to shut up and regrets each and every one of them.

Dad is worried and takes her to endless doctor's appointments and therapists and eventually as soon as they hear Dad's car in the drive, Charlie gets this pinched expression like she's dreading his return. One day instead of going to her appointment, she runs and climbs all the way up the tree in the backyard and it takes Pa four hours of sitting on the branch under her to talk her down. It would almost be funny to watch gangly Pa and his hare climbing the tree, but Dad spends the whole time at the kitchen table with his head in his hands and a drink in front of him.

There's less appointments after that, but a lot more whispered arguments that turn to raised voices through the bedroom wall when his parents think they can't hear them.

Dad sleeps on the couch one night.

Pa storms out another night after Charlie's gone to bed and when he comes back the next day, he looks guilty. Jack begins to count the number of his friends who still have parents who are together, and watches the ones who don't to see what their lives are like.

Charlie still says nothing so Jack begins to hate her, just a little.

Then Uncle Sean shows up and for once, he completely ignores Jack. He ignores Dad as well.

"Hi, Charlie," he says, walking into the living room and finding Jack playing a video game while Charlie sits silently and watches, her face pale and thin. Tait is a lizard on her shoulder, just as mute as she is. There's a notebook next to her that Dad bought her and it's blank except for a wobbly looking stick figure with a lion daemon and the word stupid underlined two times. Jack's not sure who that's aimed at, but he suspects everyone.

"She's not gonna say anything," Jack snaps, Arelys tucking her head into his shirt and shivering miserably. He doesn't want Sean to be here. He'll just make Dad angry and tense, and it will make Pa and Dad fight more once he's gone. "She's got nothing to say anymore, apparently."

Tait turns into a fuzzy spider and vanishes inside Charlie's sleeve.

Uncle Sean watches Charlie closely, and Jack can hear Dad calling out to him. He ignores him. "I think she's got plenty to say," he says finally, sitting on the floor in front of the couch. Par bounds onto the cushion next to Charlie and makes a soft, affectionate noise when Tait hangs one long leg out of her cuff and waves it at her. "I just don't think she knows how to say any of it. Charlie, watch."

They both do. He signs with his hands, the movements stiff and awkward, but clear. Twice he does them, with Charlie's eyes tracking his every move.

"What are you doing?" Jack asks with interest, despite himself. He drops the controller and inches over, the carpet scraping against his bare knees.

"Hello, Uncle. Can we go get ice cream?" Sean says with a smile that's just like Dad's, except not as tired.

Charlie's mouth opens and she looks delighted. It's the first time she's smiled like that in months. She copies his signs, fumbling in her excitement.

"Oh," breathes Jack. How _obvious_. He can't believe they didn't think of it. "Can you teach us more?"

"Of course," Uncle Sean says, and shows Charlie how to sign Jack's name and their parents', and within the hour her hands are flying at a million miles and Tait is monkey that manages the signs just as easily, possibly easier. Jack takes a bit longer to catch on, but Charlie still has her notepad and if he's too slow, she scrawls out her message and underlines _stupid_ again. He doesn't mind.

She's _talking_ and Jack's never been happier to see it.

"Thank you," Pa says to Uncle Sean later that night, and he looks so desperately happy that Jack's worried he's going to cry. Dad just nods and pats Hal, but her tail is going _tock tock_ slowly against the kitchen floor and Jack knows they're pleased too.

Uncle Sean shrugs. There's a skittering of claws on the tiles, Aureilo and Par chasing each other around playfully. "S'no problem. I dated a girl with a deaf brother for a while. She taught me. Never figured it'd be so useful."

"It is," Dad says quietly. "We were so… we didn't even think. We just wanted to get her talking again, we didn't even consider…"

"Aaron." Uncle Sean touches his arm and looks serious, and it suddenly strikes Jack that Sean and Dad are _brothers_ just like he's Charlie's, and it's a weird thought. He can't imagine them being kids, or ever really getting along. "Seriously. Stop thanking me. She's family."

Maybe things are going to be better now.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

They stay good for a while.

Then Jack is fifteen and Grandma dies.

Charlie doesn't cry and Pa cries too much, and Dad tries to hold them all together but Pa doesn't come home from Vegas after the funeral.

No one is talking about it, Jack doesn't know what's going on, but Dad doesn't call Pa to ask why he's not home. When Charlie sneaks into Jack's bedroom and signs, _"He's not coming back, is he?"_ Jack doesn't know how to answer.

Dad starts drinking.

Uncle Sean and Aunt Jessica rock up within days of each other. They make sure Charlie is fed (because Jack wasn't doing a very good job at that after he'd forgotten how to be hungry around his fear that everything was broken) and they make sure Dad is sober (sometimes). Sean even makes Jack laugh, which makes him feel guilty and sad until his uncle explains that it's okay.

Jack sneaks into his dad's room one night, takes his phone, and makes sure to obscure the number before dialling his Pa's number. He answers on the second ring and Jack can't stop crying.

Dad takes the phone and he cries too, but it gets better after that.

Pa comes home again and Dad practically throws himself in his arms, which is confusing. "I thought they were fighting?" Arelys asks, staring at Aureilo. Pa looks fine, ish. He looks like he's been grieving, which Jack can understand. His hands shake a little more. He's even wearing a thick coat, even though it's warm out and his clothes smell like sweat.

Aureilo is half the size he was, with ragged fur and glazed eyes. He looks ill.

When Pa hugs Jack, he's all bones and smells like the hospital under the sweat, nothing like himself, and Jack doesn't want to let go.

" _Maybe he was sick?"_ Charlie signs, frowning. She's staring at the coat and looking suspicious.

"Just leave it, Jack," Sean says when Jack asks him. "He's home now, it's over."

But when he leaves he sticks his head into Jack's bedroom and tells him to call if anything, _anything_ , happens, which isn't as reassuring as Jack had hoped.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He's nineteen when he learns for the first time that his family are fallible.

He's always suspected. At some point during his teenage years, it had occurred to him that his dad couldn't always be a hero, and god knows that Pa is only human. Uncle Sean messes up a lot too, but never more than what Jack does. Never anything unforgivable.

It's one thing to suspect, and another to see.

Uncle Sean had always showed up whenever he felt like it. Jobs and things like girlfriends or houses never really tied him down for long. Jack envies him that freedom.

Except this time his eyes are bloodshot and he hasn't shaved, and Jack considers that maybe there's a price for that freedom. "Want to come for a ride?" he asks Jack and Arelys with a crooked grin, and Jack agrees. Charlie comes along too because she's thirteen and can't bear to keep her nose out of things. Jack lets her, because he's off to college soon and he knows she's going to miss him.

The car smells like someone's been living in it, and this is going to be one of those things that they don't mention to Dad so he doesn't start saying things like _'get your life together'_ or _'not a child anymore.'_ Sean hurriedly clears a space on the backseat for Charlie, and she spends the whole drive with her shoes off and moving rubbish with her toes so Tait can roll it around between his big paws.

"Are we allowed to even be in here?" Charlie asks when they pull up outside a bar, and Sean shrugs. He hasn't said much, despite Jack's attempts to get him to talk. When he leans over to reach into the glovebox, his breath is whiskey-sour, and Jack goes cold.

It begins to feel like the kind of night that's going to go wrong really, really quickly.

"You'll be right, they know me," Uncle Sean says with a tired smile. "I'll buy you a soda. Can you play 8-ball?"

"Don't," Arelys warns him, flicking her tail. "She's stupid good."

"It's all maths," Charlie explains, and Uncle Sean laughs.

He plays against her anyway while Jack nurses a coke that burns his throat and congeals sickly in his stomach, watching them. The glass is cold against his clammy hand and it's sweet and cloying, and Arelys is staying close to his leg and pointing out that there are people watching them in a high, wobbling kind of voice.

Charlie wins three times in a row, and Uncle Sean hands the cue to Jack and excuses himself. Jack's not stupid enough to actually play against her, so he amuses himself by listing off complicated trick patterns and teasing her when she mucks them up. It's hard to focus beyond the sick feeling in his gut, like something bad is coming, and he needs to use the bathroom, get some air, but he can't see his uncle and he doesn't want to leave Charlie.

"He's drinking a lot," Charlie says eventually, tiring of their game. "You're sweating. Are you sick or worried?"

"Neither," Jack snaps, before she can channel their parents and try to profile him. "I'm going to the bathroom, wait here."

He splashes cold water on his face and Arelys washes the gritty-muck of the bar floor off of her paws and he holds her up to the hand-dryer, laughing as the warm air blows her ears back. He begins to feel better.

The door slams open and Charlie bursts in, almost startling him into dropping Arelys. A man using the urinal shouts and says something angry, but Jack ignores him because Charlie is white and _terrified_.

"There's three of them and one has Paarthurnax," she shrieks, and there's no sign of Tait.

"Call Aunt Jessica," Jack says, and the sick feeling is gone completely now that the bad thing is finally happening. He takes a moment to think. Pa and Dad are at work, somewhere in Atlanta, along with everyone else. Uncle Sean is tired and drunk and probably a little ill, and there's three of them.

Charlie's there and she comes first.

"He's family too," Arelys says, and Jack groans. He's nineteen and no doubt they're older and bigger and Dad is going to _kill him_.

"And the police?" Charlie squeaks, but he doesn't know.

"Wait somewhere… by the bar. Where the staff can see you," he says instead, and wades out into the fray.

He was right. Sean's on the ground and bleeding, and there's three of them. They're older, bigger, and there's a badger pinning Par down despite her squealing. Tait slashes a sharp-clawed paw across the badger's nose, and Charlie has ignored him and is right behind him.

Damn.

He hits the biggest one first because hopefully that will give them pause for thought.

It doesn't.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Aunt Jessica gets there first. If Jack's nose wasn't broken, it would have been hilarious to see her screaming at Uncle Sean while her lynx paces around Par and alternates between snarling and licking at her scratches, if it wasn't a promise of the shit-storm that was going to hit once their parents got home.

"Uh oh," Charlie says, dropping her arm from where she'd been daubing at the blood on Jack's shirt, and he looks up into Pa's furious hazel eyes.

"Uh oh," Jack says too, because he's never seen him this angry.

"Get in the car," Pa says to them quietly. Sean stands and tries to say something, and Pa's voice goes even quieter as he addresses their uncle. "You need to leave."

"Do we tell him that I threw a bottle at them?" Charlie asks Jack in a whisper that's not as quiet as she thinks it is, and Aureilo bristles. Pa's lips go white with anger.

"I think," Jack says heavily, watching Sean limp to his car with his shoulders slumped. "That we don't say very much at all."

They don't see him for a while after that.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

There comes a point in everyone's life when they take stock of what they're doing and where they're going, and they stop being kids. For a lot of people, that's not at an arbitrary age when they can die for their country or legally drink. Jack's seen pictures and heard the stories of kids barely into their teens through his parents' work who had that moment younger than any person should.

Jack had his when he was twenty-two and Pa left him to look after their broken little family.

Sean never really had one.

Five years. Five years since Jack has last seen his uncle.

Four years since Dad buried his husband. Four years since Charlie gave up on them being a family and left for London. Four years Sean failed them by not even trying. For all of his previous mistakes, this is one that Jack will never forgive him for.

His phone rings and he shouldn't answer because he's late to a lecture and his head is buzzing with the oncoming finals. But he does.

"Hey kiddo," Uncle Sean says huskily, and somehow Jack finds himself standing outside a battered apartment building while his uncle gathers his stuff together under the eye of a furious woman and her growling shar-pei daemon.

His walk is uneven so Jack knows he's drunk, and he's not wearing his watch so Jack also assumes that he's broke. Again.

They drive in silence. Jack knows that Sean's expecting him to drive to his home, or to Dad's, but he doesn't.

"So…" Sean begins eventually, his fingers tapping on Par's back restlessly.

"Pa died," Jack says savagely, cutting him off. Sean swallows and the noise echoes in the suffocating confines of the car. The wind whips Jack's hair back and makes his eyes sting, but he doesn't want to close it and have the reek of alcohol fill the space. He hasn't drunk since _that_ night and the scent makes him feel uneasy.

"I know," Sean replies eventually, looking out the window.

"You weren't there. He needed you and you weren't there."

Silence.

"I'm sorry." His uncle runs a hand through his dirty-blonde hair, and Jack hates him for the resemblance he knows they bear. "God, Jack…"

His knuckles are white around the steering wheel and he can feel his arms trembling. He's not sure if he's angry or upset or both. Arelys huddles against his side, oddly reluctant to move to the backseat, and she's shaking too. "Too scared to show up to your brother-in-law's funeral wasted? Coke again? I know you have a problem. I heard Pa and Dad talking about it after you dropped off the face of the earth."

"Neither. I promise. Listen, Jack…"

"Fuck off, Sean." Now he's angry and it's the savage kind of anger that he thought he'd had control over since school. "Do you think he would have cared? He wouldn't have fucking _noticed_. You could have shown up blazed out of your fucking mind and he'd have had no damn idea."

There's a shattered kind of laugh from the passenger seat. Jack doesn't look at him because he's supposed to be an adult and he's supposed to know better. "If you think he wouldn't have noticed, we're thinking of two very different men. Aaron never missed a trick, not even when we were kids…"

"How self-centred _are_ you?" Jack snarls, pulling the car over with a jerk of the wheel. Someone leans on their horn, screaming around him, but he ignores it. "He lost his _husband_. He didn't even know what fucking day of the week it was and he needed you. _We needed you!_ You expect me to drop everything and come get you because some skank…"

"Jack!" His voice has gone sharp and scolding and it only makes Jack angrier because he's not a kid anymore, and Sean's lost any right to correct him.

"But you couldn't even be there for us…" Jack trails off and his eyes burn and he needs his uncle out of the car, right now, out of his _life_. "Here. Here, take it." His fingers fumble on the clasp of his wallet, ripping out notes and throwing them in his lap. He doesn't know how much. Doesn't care.

He'll eat goddamn beans if it means Sean doesn't show up at Dad's and remind him of everything he's lost, Pa and Charlie and _everything_.

"You don't… I don't need your charity, Jack," Sean snaps, but his hand tightens on the money. "That's not why I called. I'm getting it together this time, I really am."

"Good. I'm glad. And that's not charity. That's money for you to get on a bus, and get it together somewhere else. Go back to New York. I don't care. Just don't… you've hurt him enough don't you think?"

The door clicks. Jack still hasn't looked at him, so he doesn't know what his expression is, but he can't because if he does he'll buckle. Sean looks like he needs a shower and a meal and a long sleep, and if Jack thinks too much about him cold and hungry he'll cave and this will never end.

"He's my brother," Sean says finally, and there's a fucking whine in his voice like he's hurt, like he's hurting, and what right does he have to hurt? Not when it's him who's constantly failing.

"If I ever treated Charlie the way you treat him," Jack says to the steering wheel. "I hope to god I'd be man enough to get the fuck out of her life. You haven't been his brother since I was a teenager, why start now?"

The door slams. He's gone, probably for a long time.

Good.

Jack drives home and doesn't tell anyone what happened.

It'd only hurt them more.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Until tonight, Jack could only name one time in his life that he and Arelys had been so goddamn scared that they couldn't think.

Well, twice, but the first time is a long time ago and barely a memory. The second is closer and won't ever fade.

This third time is somehow worse, as impossible as that seems, because at least they had had some sort of warning of the second.

Uncle Derek rings Dad, and Dad rings him, and his voice breaks as he delivers the news in a way that suggests it's beyond repair. This, this is the final thing that breaks Aaron Hotchner, and Jack can't help him because it's going to break him too. Three words. Three fucking words, and suddenly Jack is so goddamn aware of why every time the phone rang when they were kids, Aunt Jessica would tell them to go into another room before answering it.

"Jack? It's Charlie."

There's no clock in the waiting room at the hospital, and Jack thinks that that may be some sort of attempt by the staff there to stop the families clustered there from staring at it. It doesn't work, not really. Even without a visible reminder, Jack is horribly aware of how slow and shattered time has gone.

There's noise all around them, so much noise, but they're in a quiet bubble of their own that's punctuated by nothing but the restless tap of Jack's shoe on the floor as he jiggles his leg and Hal's quiet breathing. Dad says nothing and stares at the wall and looks so fragile that Jack is worried if he turns away he'll lose him. Jessica is next to him, her hand on his leg and her eyes closed. She's been here longer than all of them, the first they'd managed to reach, and she looks exhausted.

Uncle Derek gets there finally and for a short time it's noisy, but Jack can't really make sense of their conversation because a sentence containing the words 'Charlie' and 'shot' doesn't sound right at all. There's blood on Derek's shirt, on the cuffs of his sleeve. Jack stares at that too and wonders if it's possible to calculate where Charlie would have been standing to make that exact pattern of red.

There's gold as well, catching the light when he moves, and Jack can't look at that at all.

Hal inches over to Jack and leans her head on his knee with her eyes closed, and he rests a hand on her ears and tries to remember the last time he touched her. He can't. Her fur is rougher than he remembers, coarse and sparse, and she feels small under his palm. She's never been small before.

He's glad Pa isn't here.

"She took her damn vest off," Derek is saying, and that's enough. Jack gets up, focusing on the way his shoes squeak on the floor, and mumbles something about getting air. Neither of them look at him.

He almost walks right past him. He almost doesn't recognise him. Arelys does.

"Paarthurnax," she says, stopping and almost tripping Jack over. Jack turns and finds himself facing his uncle, standing near the door looking uncertain.

"Hi, Jack," Sean says first, followed by, "She's alive, yeah?"

Jack nods but his throat has closed.

"Jessica called you," Arelys theorizes, standing on her hind legs so she's taller than the greying otter, just in case. "And you came."

Sean's turn to nod. "I… I'm here. As long as you want me to be."

There's really only one answer. "They're in surgery. Through and through her shoulder, but she was on the ground and the bullet clipped Tait. I could lose my sister today, Sean."

Sean looks sick. He doesn't understand. Jack's not making himself clear. "I can go."

"No." Arelys shakes her head so vigorously almost her entire body follows. "You don't get it. We could lose our sister… and now we know how you felt when we gave up on you. You lost your brother. It hurts. Don't… don't go."

A long moment and time has stopped again. Jack glances over to his family and Jessica is watching them, and there's a doctor in scrubs walking towards them slowly.

Time starts again.

"Come on, kiddo," Sean says, and he's seen the doctor too. "Time to be a family."

They walk back over there together.


	10. Aureilo

**Chapter Ten: Aureilo**

 ** _Spencer Reid and his daemon are very much alike, except for one big difference._**

 ** _Aureilo has always been a lot better at making friends._**

 **.**

 **.**

 _"_ _Where's his daemon?" Hal said in a voice low enough that only Hotch could hear. There was no animal perched on the man's cardigan or hanging out of a pocket, the ground around his feet clear. Hotch frowned, and made a mental note to ask him if he had an insect daemon and a proper safety case for the creature to travel in._

 _In the end, that turned out to be the least mysterious thing about Spencer Reid._

 ** _Everything I Never Knew (Reprise)_**

 ** _._**

"I'm bored."

Reid hums and bites at his lip, frowning intently at the report he's working on. There's a tug on his shoe, growing more and more insistent with every minute that passes by. "Don't chew on my shoelaces," he mutters to his daemon, hauling his foot out of reach of the cross hare. "I'm not bored, so you're not bored. Stop distracting me."

"You are bored. You're just too boring to admit it." With that, the hare promptly rolls onto his back and kicks at Reid's leg with his hind paws in a dull, rhythmic fashion. _Thump, tha-thump. Thump, tha-thump._ Every time his feet make contact, Reid's hand skitters on the page, leaving a jagged pen mark on the paper.

Reid tries to ignore the smirk on Elle's face, but Arlo's stifled giggles are harder to tune out.

"If you're so bored, go find something to do," he snaps finally, pushing his chair back and glaring down at his daemon, fighting the childish urge to throw his pen at the leporid's head. "I can't concentrate with you being so… you!"

Aureilo sits up slowly and returns Reid's steady glare. "Fine," the hare says snootily, bristling his whiskers. "I shall."

And he hops off.

Reid goes back to his paperwork, sighing in relief at the renewed peacefulness of the squad room. He taps his pen on the page. _Tat, ta-tat. Ta, ta-tat. Tat, ta-tat._ The page blurs, his eyes aching.

He begins to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he's actually bored out of his mind.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He stops in on Tupelo and Garcia.

"My long-eared bundle of fuzzy hugs!" squeals Garcia in delight upon seeing him, reaching down with a pen topped with a ridiculous purple pom-pom to tickle his nose. Aureilo allows it, even though it makes him sneeze. They all have their small joys.

"Why are you wearing a shawl?" he asks Tupelo curiously once the magpie's human stops assaulting him with a fluffy weapon, the magpie hopping down from his perch to say hello. The shawl is also purple, matching Garcia's terrifying pen, and beaded with what appear to be happy faces. It's revolting.

Aureilo kinda likes it.

"We got it on sale," Tupelo says proudly, ruffling his wings to make the beads clack. "It's the exact same shade as Pen's glasses. It was this, or a hat. And the hat was orange."

Aureilo shudders. "Good choice. Hey, Garcia? Can I borrow your SmarTrip card?"

Garcia's face takes on a shade of 'why' that Aureilo quickly forestalls by looking innocent. Fortunately, over the years, he and Spencer have gotten this down to a fine art. "For a case?"

"Can't you use Reid's?"

"… No. Because of the… case."

"… Okay. Come here."

Later in the day, when Spencer Reid goes downstairs to find a working photocopier and is asked by no less than five people why his daemon was seen bounding down the hall from Garcia's office with a purple shawl tied tightly around his tummy, Reid has no answer for them.

He wisely decides, like with most things Aureilo does, that it's probably better not to ask.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Lo' Aureilo." The man on security peers down on him, and Aureilo almost audibly groans. _Edgar, of course it's Edgar._ "No Dr. Reid with you today?"

"No, Ed," Aureilo grits out, standing on his hind legs and glaring up at the man. "I'm on official business for the BAU." He hears a yawn from under Ed's seat, his portly dachshund daemon rolling over and opening one bleary eye to peer at Aureilo from between the chair legs.

Ed shrugs and presses the button on the door to let the daemon out, smirking as the hare tries to make a run for it. "Ah, field agent stuff. I understand."

 _Thank god,_ Aureilo thinks. _He didn't make a…_

"You know what they say about you field agents," Ed continues, stopping the door with his hand and calling after him. "Hare today, gone tomorrow!" He lets the door swing shut between them, cackling uproariously at his own joke.

 _God damnit._

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Hello. Down here."

The bus drivers leans down and blinks in surprise, his parrot daemon's beak gaping open in mock imitation. Aureilo considers telling them how alike they look, before reconsidering. He needs them to assist him, and Spencer is always telling him to be polite when needing assistance.

"Hello, yes. Can you tap my card for me? I lack both the height required and the opposable thumbs." The hare tries to complete his polite request by smiling as best he can with the face given to him. Spencer is also always stressing the importance of smiling when being polite.

Aureilo thinks that Spencer thinks far too much about how others perceive him.

"Where's your human at?" the driver asks eventually, looking around Aureilo like Spencer is going to pop up from out of the stained upholstery of the bus or something. "How are you here without your human? Should you be here?" He seems upset.

Aureilo doesn't have time to be soothing him. He has places to be.

"Yes, yes, I am here without my human, do try to move past that. I'm twenty-bloody five years old, I don't need supervision to catch a bus. Now, can you _please_ assist me to pay my fare?"

"I'll do it," someone said behind Aureilo, a gnarly hand appeared and cautiously scooping up the card Aureilo had tugged out from Tupelo's shawl. "Honestly, holding up the line like this. Daemons today have no respect."

The old lady smiles with her eyes as she says it, even though her mouth doesn't twitch, indicating that perhaps she's not quite as upset as she's trying to appear. Aureilo knows that look. It's the look Aaron wears when Spencer does something brilliant.

Aureilo's of the opinion that Spencer is often brilliant, but Aaron seems to only notice this half the time. He makes a mental note to point this out to Hal. He also makes a mental note to remind Spencer to be brilliant more often, in order to catch Aaron's interest.

"Thank you," he says politely as the lady tucks the card back into his shawl-pouch without letting her fingers brush his fur. She shuffles past, perching on a seat and tapping the cushion next to her.

"Come on then," she says. "Giddup here so you don't get stepped on wandering about on your own, you silly beast. Percy doesn't take up much room."

Aureilo obeys, sitting awkwardly on the seat and letting the lady snap his seatbelt on so the bus braking doesn't fling him forward. Two button-eyes and a bunch of whiskers peer out at him from the lady's pocket.

"Hello," squeaks the field mouse hiding in there. "Percy. Nice to meet you."

"Aureilo," Aureilo introduces himself. "Likewise. What's it like being a mouse?"

He's always been a lot better with meeting people than Spencer is.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Aureilo cranes his neck back to look up into the black eyes and long beak of the stern looking emperor penguin standing over him. The light filtering through the trees above glares into his own eyes, making him squint.

"Aureilo," she says calmly, nodding her beak in welcome. "It's been a long time, friend."

"Same to you, Bess. Charlie playing?" Aureilo taps his nose against the soft feathers of the penguin's stomach, unable to reach up to that intimidating beak. The penguin daemon shuffles about in an awkward semi-circle, pointing her beak towards four men intently leaning over a chessboard.

"Playing is perhaps the wrong term. He'll be glad to see you," she says, waddling after him as he bounces up the park path towards the table. "Arthur's beaten him four times in a row. He's _livid_."

"That's because he's reckless," Aureilo says, before leaping over the back of the park bench and scattering Arthur's belongings about. A bottle clatters against his paws, rubbish almost making his paws scrabble off the wood. Obviously, the game has been in play for hours. "Evening, lads!"

The men jump. Two unfamiliar ones stare in shock, eyes boggling, looking about for his missing human. Arthur ignores him completely, his hand hovering over the board and cardinal daemon staring determinedly at the opposing king piece.

Charlie beams, reaching out an absent hand to pat his penguin as she leans against his side. "Aureilo! I was beginning to think you and your skinny partner had gotten yourselves shot." He turns to the men, both of them displaying expressions of disconcertion at the humanless daemon. Aureilo ignores that.

At this point, he's used to it.

"This here's Aureilo – we've been chess-buddies for years, haven't we, bucko?" Aureilo nods, putting his paws on the table and examining the play. "He's FBI. His human's a proper genius."

"Your shot, Charlie," Arthur says in his low voice. "Stop fussing over the rabbit. No doubt he's going to help you cheat your way out of the mess you're in."

"A mess, am I?" Charlie asks, blinking and looking at the board. Bess rolls her eyes. "I don't think I'm in a mess…"

It only takes Aureilo a second to note that Charlie is indeed in a mess.

Charlie has always been terrible at chess. But damnit, he is persistent. Aureilo can respect that.

"Queen to E4, he's going to take her if you don't move her," he orders, putting his paws on the table and formulating strategies. "He's not cheating – you have Misha helping you. He has me."

"Saves me the bother," Bess adds, closing her eyes and tucking her beak against her chest. "It's too hot out here to be fussing about chess, anyway."

Three hours later, Charlie hasn't lost a game since Aureilo's arrival and even Bess is looking smug. Aureilo bounds away cheerily as the sun threatens to set, already thinking longingly of the journey home and curling up with a blanket and his Spencer.

"Until next time, Aureilo!" Charlie calls, waving. "Bring your human next time – I've got some old journals he'll be interested in!"

Sometimes Aureilo thinks that if it wasn't for him, Spencer would never manage to make any friends.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He beats Spencer home. That's nothing new.

The neighbour lets him in after making him promise to tell Spencer that she needs her ceiling fan dusted again, the sound of her slippers shuffling away up the hall soothing as he pushes the front door shut with his paws.

Loping over to the couch, it's an easy task to press play on the battered CD player he'd begged Spencer to buy him, flopping across the cushions as 'The Magic of Physics' audiobook begins chattering away.

Then he quietly switches his mind off and dozes.

He's always been better at relaxing than Spencer is as well.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"You look cosy." Aureilo jolts awake and looks up to find Spencer dropping his keys and wallet onto the cupboard, smiling crookedly at him. "Where have you been all day?"

Aureilo yawns. "Oh, you know, around. What's for dinner? I'm starving."

Spencer doesn't answer, wandering past the bookshelves looking vacant. Aureilo drapes himself over the arm of the couch, and tries to look like the most neglected hare in the world, famished and miserable. "Speeence."

"Hmm? Oh, ah… takeaway? We can get Indian if you want." He runs one finger along the spine of a book thoughtfully, before sliding it out into his hand. "Hey, Aur? What do you think of Hotch?"

Aureilo doesn't have to ask what he means; he feels the jolt of _something_ that accompanies the carefully phrased question. Both their hearts skip a beat at it.

He decides not to be coy. If he finishes this conversation quicker, the quicker they both have dinner and Spencer will settle on the couch with his lap all cosy and blanket spread over them. "He's professional. Great at his job. Efficient. Fantastic arse."

Spencer chokes on air, dropping the book he'd picked up with a _thunk_.

Aureilo smirks, seeing his human's ears flush tellingly. _Don't tell me you didn't notice as well,_ he thinks gleefully, as Spencer tries and fails to use his words. _You perve._

Aureilo's always known their minds better than Spencer as well.

But he thinks that maybe this time, just this time, Spencer's going to do just fine on his own.


	11. A Single Infinite Moment

**Chapter Eleven: A Single Infinite Moment**

 ** _They dance together._**

 **.**

 **.**

Aureilo is drooping. They're both exhausted.

Reid presses the front door closed gently, hearing the lock engage, and stands for a moment listening. Just listening. The house is silent, except for the _snick_ of a clock in the kitchen and the faint hum of Charlie's radio in the room above. The light of the hallway lamp casts long shadows in the corners of the room that should be frightening, but they're… comforting.

 _Welcome home,_ the shadows say, and dance as Aureilo hops through them and casts a looming spectre of a long-eared shape on the staircase. _Your family sleeps._

 _His family._

He smiles and tiptoes to the kitchen, gently placing his keys down and moving into the living room to drop his bag by the armchair where Aaron's coat hangs on the side, Jack's schoolbag leaning nearby. When he runs the back of his palm over Aaron's chair, it's cool. Long vacated.

There's a warm bed waiting for him upstairs and arms that will draw him close. Two children sleeping in their own beds, both of whom love him unconditionally.

He'll never take this life for granted. Not ever.

He sits, just for a moment, in the chair that Aaron favours and closes his eyes to savour the night and this comfort. Aureilo bounces onto his lap, paws scrabbling, a warm weight that settles against his chest as his daemon shares in his well-being.

They fall asleep like that, with the tick of the clock reminding them of the passing of time, and the dawn creeping slowly onward.

And wake what feels like moments after to find a small hand on his knee and two sets of wide eyes examining him solemnly.

"You were dreaming," Charlie says quietly, tilting her head to the side as though to puzzle over a particularly difficult crossword question. "Hello, Pa."

"Hello, Pa," Tait repeats, a moth on her sleeve.

"Charlie, love," Reid greets her, shaking the sleepiness away, and pulls her up onto his lap. She curls around Aureilo, tiny fingers threading through his fur, and Tait is a purring kitten now on the shoulder of her blue flannel pyjamas. "Good morning."

"It's night still," she corrects him, and tucks her ear to his chest to listen to his heartbeat. "What were you dreaming about?"

Reid tries to remember, but the dream slips away. He pulls Charlie close, placing his nose against her sweet-smelling hair, and thinks. She waits, eternally patient. She knows he'll never leave a question unanswered if he can help it.

"Dancing," Aureilo answers finally, bumping his nose against her elbow. "We were dancing."

Another head tilt. She puzzles through that slowly, then smiles. The smile is just as slow, but Reid can see JJ in the curve of her eyes when the expression settles, and it makes his heart twist in his chest at the perfection of JJ's gift to them.

He can see JJ in her eyes and himself in her smile, but there's something about the calm settle of her entire self that speaks more than anything of Aaron's influence. The perfect mix. Her and Jack, impossibly perfect in his eyes, always.

"I don't know how to dance," she says eventually, right at the clock ticks loudly to symbolize the hour, and it occurs to Reid that it's far beyond the time she should be awake and he should probably take her back upstairs and tuck her and Tait into bed, kiss them goodnight, promise to be there still in the morning.

But.

He stands, carefully, tangling her legs over his arms and making sure she has time to grip her arms around his neck, clinging monkey-like to his front. There's a whoop of surprise and loud giggles as her head tips backwards, expression turning giddy and silly and happy.

"It's not so hard," he teases, and to the sound of the night, the quiet house and the ticking clock, he weaves leisurely around the living room with his daughter in his arms in an endless waltz. "See. It's just… knowing the steps."

"Show me," she demands, and he lowers her so she can place her bare feet on his shoes and her hands on his waist, wrapping his shirt tight in her fist as she laughs again, uncertain.

"Like this," he says, and shows her how.

It's a single infinite moment and he carries the memory of it forever.


	12. Storm

**Chapter Twelve: Storm**

 ** _The one time he failed._**

 **.**

 **AN: Warning for a depiction of severe clinical depression, drug use, and addiction themes.**

 **.**

His life is a storm.

It's fine, right up until it isn't, and that sounds redundant, he knows, but it's the thought that his mind is fixated on right now.

"We're broken," he says out loud, and the grimy curtains flicker in the breeze like they're agreeing. He nods seriously at them and turns slowly on the spot, taking in his surroundings. Aureilo watches and his eyes are wide, hunted. He's a creature of the twilight and it's day all around, and he's just as broken as Spencer himself is. "You're broken," Reid says spitefully to the hare, who shakes himself slowly, pitifully, and Reid watches with fascination at the way it makes the dust motes dance.

His world is this room, this grimy filthy room in the arse end of Vegas, and he's forgotten.

Maybe it's not a storm after all, but a hotel room with peeling walls that were once freshly painted, and an endless succession of broken moments within.

Aureilo sneezes. The sound is loud and the refrigerator chokes on it.

"I miss Hal," he says finally, his voice thin and weak. He flattens his ear back and Reid wonders if he remembers ( _remember when you were needed, because i don't_ ) what it was to have two.

"I don't," Reid snaps, because he's always shitty coming down, and it's been hours he thinks, since the curtains mocked him. His legs are sore like he's been standing for ages, and Aureilo's on the bed now. He feels a bite of anger and he wants his hare to hurt like he can't. "They wouldn't have us anymore, anyway."

Aureilo is quiet until he isn't, and when he does speak he just agrees.

And then Reid remembers his mom and a dry grave and he reaches again for the bottle on the table.

If he's going to fall, he may as well make it memorable.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

When Charlie was two, Reid fell in love again.

He'd never fallen out of love, not once, but he remembers walking out and finding Aaron with Charlie's little feet standing on his socked ones, holding her impossibly small hands and teaching her to dance in slow, careful shuffles around the living room floor. Tait was a butterfly with gaudy wings and he spun around and around and around and his wings made the lights dance on the wall, and Reid remembers laughing and Aaron smiling and Charlie giggling.

He fell in love again, even though he'd never fallen out of it, because that could happen.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

When Charlie was seven, she was far too smart and much too quiet, and Aaron fell out of love. Spencer never asked him, never asked for confirmation of his fears, but he knew it had happened.

"Spencer." Aaron greets him on the phone, and he's smiling, Reid can hear it. He's smiling and he's sad and Spencer tastes all the flavours of those emotions and he takes too long, too long, because Aaron's voice changes and now it's sharp and frightening and his heart hammers. "Spence? Are you okay? Did you get everything organized with the house? I told you I should have stayed."

"Tell him," murmurs Aureilo, sniffing at the box with the sum of their failure within. "Tell him."

When Charlie was seven and Jack fifteen, Spencer Reid laughed on the phone to his husband until he wasn't laughing anymore, but crying, and when Aaron panicked he laughed some more.

Because it was funny how much Aaron thought his love could save them.

"I'm fucked up," he says finally ( _and i mean my life, aaron, my life is fucked up as well as me and see how clever i still am even when i'm off my face and still falling_ ) and Aaron's sharp inhale is almost delicious.

He's always cruel when high, and he'd forgotten that.

"Are you drunk?" Aaron asks, but Spencer knows he's only asking out of hope.

"It felt good to fail," he admits, and hangs up because he can't actually do this.

He thinks of the grave again and doesn't cry.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Aren't you coming home with us?" Jack asks curiously, poking his head into the hotel room and watching them. He's clever, painfully so, and Spencer knows he's seen the bags that Aaron is packing and the ones that Spencer isn't, and he's put that together.

"Pa's going to stay to help with Grandma's house and books," Aaron explains patiently, smiling wanly at his son. Jack is taller now, older, all legs and arms and a mop-head of hair that looks ridiculous on him. It makes Spencer ache, usually, for when Jack was a baby and the whole world was ahead of him.

Spencer looks at him now and he's getting older, they all are, and he thinks of graves, because they all die eventually and shit, that's not good. His thoughts are rambling, distorted, and he knows the signs. Knows he hasn't been right since the phone call, the frantic flight, the getting here too late. Maybe even before that.

And he knows Aaron hasn't noticed how close he is to breaking, and maybe at some point they'd gotten so familiar with each other they'd stopped needing to pay attention.

Reid needs him to pay attention because he's on the edge and about to gleefully fling himself off.

"Spence? Hey. You've been staring at…" Aaron trails off, narrows his eyes, and his bags are packed. When did that happen? "I'm going to stay. You need me here."

"No," he reassures him, and his voice is so steady he's almost proud ( _look at the twisted liar you've made of me_ ). "I'm fine, really I am. I'll work out the details of the sale and I'll head home. I… I need to grieve. Alone."

 _No no no no no_ his mind chatters. _Not alone, Aaron, can't you see what I'm going to do? Profile me damnit._ But that's the addict as well, rationalizing.

Rationalizing; your mother is dead and you weren't here, you haven't been for a long time, so what about that needle ( _the high is quicker and you need it now_ ).

Rationalizing; your daughter is silent and struggling with demons she's too young to understand, and that's your fault, so how about some pills instead ( _no marks that way, you see_ ).

Rationalizing; your husband is distant, he doesn't see your slipping, so this is punishing him as well. If he doesn't notice, he's practically condoning it. So. How about both. Push it to the limits, and then some more, genius ( _because even geniuses make mistakes, and you're about due for a monumental one_ ).

 _(they'll be better off without you)_

"They'll be better off without us," Aureilo repeats dully when they're gone, and he shivers, and Reid slams the door shut on him, locking him out of the bedroom.

He paces and his phone rings and rings and rings.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Dr. Reid, I'm sorry but…"

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

In his dreams, Aaron is sitting at the kitchen table wearing the dressing gown Reid bought him, and Reid talks and talks and talks and he won't listen.

"I love you, I love you," Reid begs, he begs, and Aaron just smiles.

"You don't even know what that is anymore," Aaron says calmly, and fiddles with the cuff of his sleeve, a stray thread. It unravels. It always unravels and Reid wants to smack his hand away, tell him to stop shredding the gift he gave him bit by bit, but he never does.

Sometimes he's clever in his dreams like he isn't in life anymore.

Sometimes things repeat like a broken record, skipping, faltering, and that's just life now.

"I'm in trouble," he says one day, to whomever is listening, but when he looks up it's Aureilo at the kitchen table with Aaron's dressing gown on, and he looks bored. "We're in trouble," Reid corrects himself, because Aureilo is a reflection of himself and he's unravelling too.

"Are we?" Aureilo says, blinking, and the dressing gown is still unravelling. "You'd think if we were in trouble we would feel something."

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He wakes early and he's restless, and sometimes Aaron wakes with him, but he tells him to go back to sleep and paces the house.

Jack sleeps with his arms and legs flung around him, claiming the bed like the space is owed to him; and Charlie sleeps with her back to the wall and chin against her chest. She hugs Tait to her like a teddy bear, protecting her daemon from the world, and Reid looks down at them and feels nothing.

"I'm in trouble," he says out loud, just once, and she mutters in her sleep like she's close to waking. He slinks away, feeling guilty.

At least it's something.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Are you okay?" JJ asks him one day, but when he looks up to answer he's in the hotel room again and there's a needle in his hand.

"No," he says to his reflection and his reflection laughs, turning his face into a jagged crack on the mirror.

Later, his hand is bleeding and his phone is silent.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

They bury his mother on a Tuesday. He doesn't speak because he let her die.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Inability to recall recent events; a reduction in the subject's short term memory retention. He forgot how many toll roads there were in Baltimore during the last case. It was a small mistake, stupid, but Morgan looked at him oddly and he had to spend the rest of the day acting manically cheerful to hide his mistake.

Inappropriate guilt. Charlie is in trouble at school again. She's withdrawn, isolated. She's struggling, his beautiful daughter with all his brains and all his flaws. His fault. His _faulthisfaulthisfault_. They change her school again because there's a bruise on her arm in the shape of a hand and he drives alone afterwards, pulls over in a parking lot, and vomits until his gut cramps.

Inability to find pleasure in usual activities. Reduced sex drive.

"Come to bed." It's rare that Aaron tries to initiate anymore, but he does tonight. He sidles up behind Reid as he's running the water to do the dishes, but there's not even a flicker of interest. He stares at his hands under the flowing water, feeling them redden under the hot stream, and wonders where his mind has gone. "Leave them to soak. We'll do them in the morning."

Water flowing, flowing, flowing, and his husband is hard against his back, he wants him, but Reid feels nothing. Besides, he's already avoided this situation four times in the past three weeks (three blow-jobs, one hand-job, and feigning his orgasm to get out of Aaron reciprocating. Not hard to do, not while Aaron was still riding the waves of his own pleasure, and as long as he hurries off to the bathroom before he recovers…), and it's going to gather suspicion soon. Hal is nuzzling Aureilo and Aureilo just blinks and stares at nothing.

"I don't feel well," he says finally, because that will turn the hunger to concern and he'll have an excuse to sleep in even though he won't sleep. And it works, for a second.

"Jesus, fuck! Spencer, your hand!" And Aaron grabs his wrist and yanks it out the water and there's a blister on his palm and it's not half obvious Aaron, pay fucking attention.

"I don't feel well," Reid repeats, but now he's alone except for his memories.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Did he ever ask for help before it come to this?

This room is smaller than the hotel room, and painted yellow, and Reid could ramble on about the psychological studies that link the colour yellow to helping depression, but he can't when this yellow is his and this room is so permanent.

He can't remember if he asked for help.

His mom died in a place like this, except nicer.

Maybe this is his repentance.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Years ago and miles away, Reid had almost fucked up once before.

"Do it again and I'll take Jack and go," Aaron had warned him. "I've seen what this does to children, and I love you, but not that much that I'll let you destroy him."

And he doesn't visit, which is more than Reid deserves.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

His phone is silent but there's a knock on his door and he knows that knock and it hurts.

"I ruined the gift you gave me," he says when he opens it, and starts to cry. It's the frantic type of crying, that tightens a band around his chest and constricts; tries to stop him breathing, and he's hiccupping, gasping, his heart can't take this, and she just holds him and she might be crying too.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Kailo asks, landing on the table and waving his front leg at the box with a wary curiosity. "What gift?"

"Charlie," he gasps, when he can breathe again, and the panic returns. "I ruined her. She was perfect, she was you, but then you added me and all I do is hurt."

"Oh Spence," JJ says finally, and she's opened the box and her face is a mixture of pain and disgust. "Why didn't you come to me before this?"

"I did," he says simply, and she's packing his bags, but he knows they're not going home. He hasn't got a home now. He ruined that with a phone call. "I asked as much as I could but no one noticed."

Unsaid, it's almost an accusation.

You're profilers, how could you miss this?

And he can tell she agrees.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Emily visits. He's missed her.

"You're a fucking idiot," she snaps, and Sergio bristles at Aureilo. She throws him a five sided Rubik's cube and he stares at it, before raising an eyebrow at her. "It was all they had in the gift shop. Apparently they don't stop 'puzzles for really stupid geniuses', okay?"

"I didn't overdose," he responds calmly, and solves it. She takes it back and rolls her eyes, tossing it aside. "I used clean needles. The supply was reliable. I took very few risks."

Now she looks furious. "Except for the risk to your career, your family," she says harshly, but she's holding his hand now and her nails are bitten to the quick. He runs the pad of his thumb over them sadly, and her other hand touches the back of his hand, the veins and lines, the bones that are visible under the surface. Old hands. His hands have gotten without him noticing.

"I'd already lost my family," he says finally, closing his eyes. "I hate it here, Emily. I feel crazy." _I feel like my mother, before I killed her with neglect._

She's quiet for the longest time. "Hotch said he'll only let you back if you get help," she says finally, and leans forward, catching her eyes with his and her gaze burns a hole through him. "He didn't specify where. Come home with me. Please."

And it's been a long time since Reid felt wanted, in any sense, so he goes.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

"Can I speak with Diana Reid? It's her son."

"I'm sorry, Dr, but your mother really isn't well today. We can try, but she's unlikely to accept the call. Would you like us to contact you when she recovers?"

"Yes, please. I can be reached at…"

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Two weeks and he's always preferred warm weather, but he could grow used to the cold here. Emily works a lot, but Margo is usually there when she's not at school, and even though she's as fiercely independent as her mother, she slowly warms to him. He teaches her chess, or at least as well as he can teach a five-year-old who'd rather be outside. She teaches him the alphabet, or as much as she knows so far (up to F, but she has a firm grasp of the concept of LMNOP, even if she says it as one word instead of singular letters). She reminds him of Charlie, before he ruined his daughter with neglect.

He overhears a phone call.

"I don't know what you were thinking, Hotch. He wasn't going to get better in that place – he's smarter than every so called 'doctor' in the place, he was running rings around them. I don't give a rat's ass how recommended it is; recommended doesn't mean 'Reid-certified.' Uh-huh. Right, fine, you think I overstepped, I probably did. I'm fucking glad I did. Are you going to tell me you didn't see one single fucking _hint_ of this coming, because he looks like he's been dragged through… ah, fuck, Hotch. Fuck. I'm sorry, alright. Jesus… don't. Just speak to him. Stop this."

And he walks away because he knows Aaron won't speak to him, and he doesn't want to hear Emily beg.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He gets better.

Things always do, eventually. Eventually.

"Aaron's coming to visit," Emily says cheerfully one day, and Reid twists his wedding ring on his finger and his oatmeal turns to ashes in his mouth. Aureilo shakes and presses to the floor. They both feel sick. "You agreed, Spencer. You said you could handle it."

"We lied," Aureilo says, and closes his eyes.

But in the end it doesn't matter, because Aaron doesn't come.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Jack rings him in the middle of the night and he answers without thinking even though he hasn't spoken to the kids in months because he didn't want to break their hearts, and he's just like his father, really.

"'Lo?" he answers sleepily, Aureilo stirring on the pillow next to him, and suddenly all her can hear is sobbing.

"Pa?" Jack cries, and his voice is agony to hear, and he can't hang up when his son is breaking like this. "Oh god, Pa, I thought… where are you? Dad won't answer and neither will Uncle Sean and I miss you, I miss you, please."

He's crying and he can't answer because he's shattering with missing them.

The light flickers on and it's Emily and she's pale and nervous looking, eyes widening when she sees his face.

"I love you," he says finally. "Jack, remember I love you so goddamn much, and your sister, and your father, and I miss you all."

Emily looks away and he realizes he'd added Aaron to that even though he's pretty sure that's not his right anymore.

Jack is talking but not to him, and suddenly there's a deeper voice on the phone. "Who is this?" asks the voice that shatters all of his resolve to let them walk away, and he realizes that his wonderful, clever son must have obscured the caller ID so he wouldn't get in trouble.

"Aaron," Spencer breathes, and Sergio is on the bed next to him, pressing against Aureilo, and none of them are breathing. Emily touches his arm, eyes worried, a silent _Are you ready for this?_

A sighing whistle of air like Aaron had just released a breath he'd been holding. "Spencer. Oh, Spencer."

He pulls away from Emily's hand, and he knows what he feels like he hasn't for months, and maybe he's finally surfacing. "I'm sorry," he says, and means it.

Aaron is quiet. Their future teeters on the precipice. "I am too," he says finally, and his voice cracks. "I love you."

And maybe there is a way forward for them.

Maybe they have time left after all.


	13. Our Stories

**Chapter Thirteen: Our Stories**

 ** _Six moments in the Hotchner/Reid household_**

 **.**

 **.**

 _"_ _Children are made readers on the laps of their parents."_

Emilie Buchwald

 **.**

The first time Haley leaves Jack with him, he's lost. His son is tiny, all flailing limbs and a scrunched up face that looks almost alien. His kitten daemon adds to the noise issuing from the portable cot, mewling in desperation for a soothing paw both Hotch and Hal lack.

He misses Reid. He has no doubt that Reid would be just as lost as he is, but at least they could be lost together.

But Reid is far away and out of reach, and Hotch is alone with this small creature that relies completely on him for everything. It's terrifying. He's terrified.

But not alone, not really.

"You're being an idiot," Hal scolds him when she pads into the kitchen and finds him staring helplessly at a bottle. "He's been fed. He's been changed. Stop overthinking it."

"He won't stop crying," Hotch says, turning and staring at his daemon with something like desperation. "I don't know what he wants!" He thinks of Reid, fleetingly. Then he thinks of calling Haley. He doesn't know how she does this, alone.

He even contemplates Rossi. Surely between the two of them…

"He wants you," Hal says sharply, sitting down with her dark eyes firm. "Hold him. Read to him. Just do something with him!"

So Hotch does.

He finds a book in the bag Haley had packed for him and settles down onto the couch with his son in his arms. There's a single moment where he marvels at the small consciousness gazing up at him with watery eyes, saliva-sticky fingers grabbing at his hand. Hal settles at his feet, Arelys a miniscule grey shadow burrowed in her thick fur.

And he reads until his voice cracks and Jack is long asleep. "… Don't give up! I believe in you all. A person's a person, no matter how small."

Maybe he can do this after all.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Jack blinks up at him, sleepily, and then inexplicably tries to eat his toes.

"Don't do that," Reid tells him, glancing down at his hare for help. "Why is he doing that?"

"He's coordinating the development of his perceptive abilities," Aureilo says with a yawn. "And because babies like being all drooly."

"Oh." Reid leans over the crib and wrinkles his nose at the stickiness of the toddler. "You're all mucky," he complains to the smiling face under him. Jack just giggles. Arelys tries to bat a paw at his chin. He's not entirely sure where to pick him up without getting his hands all covered in drool.

"Aaron is going to wonder why you're taking so long," Aureilo warns him, making himself comfy under the chair near the crib. Reid glances at it, tightening his grip on the book he'd grabbed on his way out of the cabin bedroom.

He settles for scooping him up under the armpits and lifting the damp child into his lap, settling down in the chair with the book on his knees. Jack squirms restlessly for a moment and Reid freezes, the realization of the depth of what he's doing sinking in.

Him. With a child. Reading to him just like his mom…

"You're not your mom," Aureilo says quietly, and Reid nods. Swallows his fear. Aaron needs this. If they're going to be anything, he needs to be a part of Jack's life too.

He doesn't need to read the words on the page to know them, they're imprinted vividly into his mind. He does anyway, so Jack can see the carefully drawn illustrations. "In a busy little town, not very far away, there is a church and in that church there lived a mouse whose name was Arthur."

None of them are awake to hear the book sliding to the floor, or to see the exact moment Aaron walks into the room and promptly falls inexorably in love with the man sitting in there.

It's the beginning of something.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Reid recommended the book. Well, to be completely accurate, Reid recommended this book among a host of others and Hotch has cautiously decided that this one is the closest to being age appropriate.

He's beginning to learn that Reid doesn't exactly believe in age appropriateness in books for children, and will just as happily read something rivalling War and Peace in size to Jack as he will Aesop's Fables.

"Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself." Jack's young enough that the implications of the passage they reach don't sink in, but Hotch stumbles over the line and closes his eyes for a moment against the raw pain it brings.

"Are you sad, Daddy?" Jack asks sleepily, rolling over in the bed with a rustle of new sheets and reaching out to pat his leg. "Why?"

"I miss your mom," he says honestly, and Hal makes a soft sound of regret from the end of the bed.

Jack nods. "I do too," he replies seriously. "Don't stop reading."

So Hotch continues. In a year, maybe two, probably less if Reid has his way, one of them will pick up this book and reread it to Jack and Jack will ask why Charlotte had to go.

And they'll tell him. But for now, he's young and even death fails to leave a mark on him for long. Hotch is grateful for that. Foyet couldn't break Jack.

"She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both."

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

His new apartment is far too quiet after the comfort of living with Aaron for so long. He feels like he's bouncing off the walls, like a mouse in a cage the size of a house.

He eats his dinner alone and misses Jack; he sleeps alone and misses Aaron. At night he floats around the apartment in silence and almost wishes his phone would ring, summoning him to work and the comfort of his friends' company.

JJ's a better profiler than she lets on.

"Henry's coming over this weekend for a sleepover," she announces on the Thursday, stopping at his desk and fixing him with a glare that suggests he has no say in the matter. "I'm going on a girl's night with Emily, and you promised him some quality time with Uncle Spence."

He agrees and she smiles at him as though he's stumbled blindly into a particularly obvious trap, wandering off towards Hotch's office.

He should have known. She's always more cunning about her meddling than Rossi is.

Which is how he ends up with Jack and Henry peering up at him over their covers that weekend, both daemons in hare form and all four of them positively vibrating with overexcitement.

"Read a book from your head!" Henry requests, wiggling his toes under the blanket so Fi can shift to a kitten and claw at them playfully. Arelys rolls her eyes and looks away, the two years in age difference between them clearly giving her a much greater maturity. Reid smiles as her tail twitches, betraying her temptation.

"Which book?" he asks, settling on the bed and dimming the lamp. The boys fall silent for a moment, thinking hard.

"The one with the flying boy," Fi says suddenly, losing interest in Henry's toes. "We like that one."

"I don't," Jack complains. "It's childish."

"You are a child," Aureilo says. He flops at the end of the bed. "And I happen to like Peter Pan, and I'm boss. So there." He pokes his tongue out for added emphasis, before launching into the tale before Jack can retort. "All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this."

He pauses and all eyes turn to Reid, who continues obediently. "One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, 'Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!' This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up."

"Are you grown up when you're two?" Jack asks with interest, despite himself. "Henry's two. And I was two, forever ago."

"It wasn't that long ago," Arelys corrects him. "We're not so grown up. Grownups don't get stories read to them."

"I like stories," Jack says, quieter this time because Henry's eyes are slipping closed. He watches Reid with something close to panic on his face. "Even when I'm grown up, can I have stories?"

Reid tucks him in. "Always," he promises. "Now, shh. 'You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.'"

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Reid can't help but smile at the oddity of hearing Aaron reading from the battered old children's book, trying to keep a straight face as he reads.

"'Well,' said Pooh, 'what I like best,' and then he had to stop and think." Aaron pauses, and checks to see if Jack is asleep. He charges on anyway. "Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.'"

"He's asleep," Reid whispers, shifting uncomfortably from his position on the floor with his back against the bed. Aaron drops his hand down and cards it through Reid's hair. Reid leans back into the touch, savouring it.

They've been apart far too long.

They sneak out together, closing Jack's door carefully behind them. "It's going to take Jack a while to believe I'm not going to leave again, isn't it?" Reid asks Aaron sadly. Aureilo and Hal look up as they enter their room, curled up together on the bed.

"He'll get there," Aaron says reassuringly, drawing him into his arms. Reid tucks his head against his shoulder and focuses on their hearts beating together again, finally. He doesn't think about the fear of losing this again, or the terror of Aaron collapsing those few short weeks ago. If he runs his palm on the warm skin under his partner's shirt, he knows he'll find the careful line of scarring left by the surgery that saved his life.

"I hope so," he murmurs against Aaron's shoulder, the cautiousness Jack now shows around him burning.

"I know so," Aaron responds.

He sounds so sure that Reid has no choice but to believe him.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Hotch is lying in bed with Spencer slumped against his chest, head drooping down in a way that suggests the man is very close to asleep, when they hear a single loud cry from the other room.

He sighs as Spencer jerks awake as though electrified. "Calm down," he suggests, noting the wide-eyed look of panic his partner wears. Aureilo is up, bounding to the door and back again, impatiently waiting for them to open it.

"I am calm," Spencer says in a voice that's anything but. "I am completely calm. This _is_ calm."

"I'd hate to see panicked then," Hal says with a yawn, ambling up. "Come on then, worrywart. Let's go."

Hotch can't help it. It's technically Spencer's turn by the rules they've negotiated, but there's something about this sight that he's drawn to helplessly. He feels like he's been waiting his whole life for it and even after months, it hasn't grown old. He follows.

Spencer stops dead in the hallway and his expression turns soft and warm. Hotch's heart gives a little kick at the sight as he presses forward to peer past the other man.

He recognises that look. It's the way he'd looked at Jack the first time he'd held him.

He's pretty sure it was the way he looked at Spencer that night at the cabin.

And it's the way Jack looks now, sitting carefully next to the crib with a familiar book open in his hands, reading every word with the sort of care that suggested he is doing something of infinite importance. As far as Hotch is concerned, he is.

"Arthur loved living in the church…" Jack reads out before looking up at them and frowning, holding a finger up to his mouth, his blonde hair falling messily into his eyes. "Shh, go away," he grumbles. Charlie makes a noise of protest, accompanied by a sleepy murmuring from the tiny puppy daemon dangling gawky paws out the bars.

They back away, leaving Jack to his brotherly duties. Spencer looks at him when they reach the bedroom and beams. "Jack's brilliant," he says proudly.

Hotch laughs, because he's known that for years and he'd have thought that someone as clever as Spencer would have worked it out sooner. "Of course he is. He's our son."


	14. What Makes Us Human

**Chapter Fourteen: What makes us human**

 ** _The chapter in which a variety of daemons settle, for a variety of reasons._**

 ** _Some good. Some bad. And some for no real reason at all._**

 **.**

 **.**

 _"_ _But suppose your dæmon settles in a shape you don't like?"_

 _"Well, then, you're discontented, en't you? There's plenty of folk as'd like to have a lion as a dæmon and they end up with a poodle. And till they learn to be satisfied with what they are, they're going to be fretful about it. Waste of feeling, that is."_

 _But it didn't seem to Lyra that she would ever grow up._

 **― Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass**

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _Never try to outstubborn a cat."_

― **Robert A. Heinlein,** ** _Time Enough for Love_**

She's at one of her mother's stupid dinners, managing to slip out between courses. Her mother will be pissed, but Emily's always happiest when they're fighting anyway. The Prentiss family is top notch at non-communication. When her mother is angry, she walks around the house with her mouth all tight and pinched and talks only when she has to.

Emily likes it best that way.

She's staring longingly at a waiter sneaking a smoke behind some ridiculous hedge cut to look like either a really fat horse or a skinny hippo, wishing Matthew was here so she could bum a smoke off him, when a cat streaks out of the hedge and comes to a stop in front of her. It looks up at her with green eyes that she envies.

"Shoo, puss," she hisses, seeing the waiter look over and frown. "I haven't got anything for you."

The cat yawns and flops to the ground, lifting a leg and nonchalantly beginning to clean his grey fur as though he hasn't a care in the world.

Sergio climbs down her shoulder and stares at the cat, his bushy tail tickling her bare arm. She hates it when he takes squirrel form. It always makes her feel twitchy, like she should live up to her daemon's exuberant form somehow. "He's got the life," Sergio says with a satisfied tic of his whiskers, and suddenly she has an armful of sleek black cat and the strangest certainty that this is how it is from now on.

It's a little anti-climactic.

"Just like that then?" she asks him, holding him out by his armpits and examining his new form. He flicks his tail and smiles smugly at her. "You're a cat now? Why a cat?"

"Why not?" he retorts and she really can't argue with that since it's the same argument she's been using to justify her behaviour to her mother for the past three years.

"Alright," she says finally, lifting him back up to her shoulders so he can lay around her neck, a warm, comforting weight. "If you cough up a hairball during dessert, I'll let you lick my bowl clean."

Sergio purrs against her and she decides that she's actually quite pleased with his choice after all.

"Deal," he agrees.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones."_

― **Arthur Conan Doyle** , **_The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes_**

When Naemaria settles, he's ashamed enough of her that he refuses to leave his room. His mom doesn't notice until after his sisters have left for school, coming up and tapping tentatively on the door. Naemaria sulks at the foot of his bed, miserable, sensing his frustration.

"Derek?" his mom calls softly, pushing open the door. He ignores her, wriggling deeper into his covers, and waiting for the scolding that he's sure is coming for bunking off school.

It doesn't come.

"Oh! Derek, Naemaria's settled! Isn't that wonderful?"

There's a delight in her voice that he doesn't deserve, tinged with sadness that Dad isn't here to see it.

Isn't ever going to be here to see it.

His eyes burn so he presses them into the sheets. Maybe she'll think he's got flu and leave him alone. Naemaria gives him away, whining pathetically as she tries to sink even lower to the ground, tail firmly between her legs.

His bed dips and a cool hand reaches under the blanket and leans against his forehead. "You're not sick," she says, and her voice is firm now. "So why hide like this? Your daemon settling is a joyful time, Derek. We celebrate it. We don't sulk and feel sorry for ourselves because it's not what we wanted."

He bursts into tears, which is mortifying because he's _ten_ now and the man of the house, and what would his dad say if he saw him crying like this? He'd know that he'd been wrong in leaving Derek in charge, that he can't ever be the man he needs to be.

He can hear his mom's beaver daemon soothing Naemaria even as he's pulled into her arms and cuddled close. It's embarrassing, having his mom holding him like this. Like he's a baby still instead of a man grown.

He lets her anyway because it's good to pretend, even for a moment, that he's a kid again and his dad is just outside in the hall. Maybe getting ready for work, or coming in to kiss them goodnight.

She lets him go until he wipes his eyes dry and sits up. He feels somehow cleaner, as though he can face his problems now without them weighing him down. But he knows she's waiting for an explanation. And it better be a good one, since a glance at the clock tells him he's missed the morning bell.

"She's a bully breed," he says finally, looking anywhere but at his daemon. "She's… ghetto, Momma. People get boxers to look tough, trashy people. I don't want people to look at me and say, 'he's just another wanna-be tough kid' and think because my daemon is the way she is that I'm someone I'm not."

She sighs. "You're not a stereotype unless you want to be a stereotype, Derek. You think when you stand up there with your high-school diploma in eight years that everyone is going to be looking at your daemon and calling you trash? Or when you go to college? No, they'll be thinking the same as me. Look how smart that boy is and how proud his momma must be. He didn't let his home, or his daemon, or the colour of his skin stop him from succeeding. But you gotta work for that and prove you earned it."

Now he glances at his daemon, and she looks so hurt by his disregard that he almost cringes with the pain of it. "But if she's a bully breed, doesn't that mean that that's who I am? Why even fight it?"

She narrows her eyes in that way that means he's just opened his mouth and spat out a whole heap of trouble into his lap, and he pulls away from what he's sure is going to be a biting retort.

"See, what's gonna get you in trouble, boy, is talking before you know what you're even saying," she says, standing and brushing her pants smooth. "You know what I think of when I think of a boxer dog? I don't think of no bully-breed, bred to fight. I think of loyalty and bravery and the capacity for the greatest of love. Before you go assuming that people are judging you, study where these thoughts are coming from and perhaps reconsider your own opinions. Now, stay in here and sulk, or live up to the legacy Naemaria has offered you and I'll write you a note for your teacher."

His mom leaves him with his choice and it's no choice at all. He gets dressed for school quickly before crouching to bring himself eye-to-eye with Naemaria. "I'm sorry," she says, tail drooping. "I didn't mean to do this, it just happened…"

"Don't be sorry," he says firmly. "I should be sorry. You're wonderful. We'll prove it. No one can stop us."

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _She remembered being six or seven and crying over the fates of the butterflies in her yard after learning that they lived for only a few days. Her mother had comforted her and told her not to be sad for the butterflies, that just because their lives were short didn't mean they were tragic. Watching them flying in the warm sun among the daisies in their garden, her mother had said to her, see, they have a beautiful life. Alice liked remembering that."_

― **Lisa Genova** , **_Still Alice_**

Rosaline never wants to look at her butterflies.

JJ always sets them out perfectly, each one carefully showing off their beauty in each little box, but Rosaline shudders and calls it creepy. "Why do you want to look at dead things, anyway?"

JJ doesn't say anything to her but it hurts because Rosaline is older than her and therefore smarter, and JJ doesn't want to be creepy. So, eventually, she stops trying to show them to her.

Kailo likes being a butterfly. He likes the freedom and agility his wings give him. He's much brighter than the ordinary butterflies she keeps in their wood and glass boxes, their colours dimmed by death and light, and she loves him best of all.

She can watch him for hours as he spins from one colourful form to another, fluttering wings making the shadows on her walls dance. She knows he'll settle one day and take one form but she doesn't know which she'd prefer.

She thinks maybe she'd like a _Greta oto_ , the Glasswing Butterfly. Wings like crystal, clear and fragile. She tries to tell Rosaline about it and her sister frowns. "Why would you want people to see straight through you?" she asks, and JJ reconsiders.

There's the Giant Owl Butterfly but if dead butterflies in glass cases are creepy, she knows her sister will hate the great eyes on the wings that give it its name, even though Kailo loves it. "They're so cool," he says in his whispering voice, but she shakes her head and he sadly shifts to another.

He becomes an Emerald Swallowtail at breakfast one morning and Rosaline looks at him and smiles for the first time in what feels like forever. "He's pretty today," she says and the smile wavers.

"He's _Papilio palinurus_ ," JJ tells her, and wonders if she should tell her about the one she'd collected last year. She decides not to.

Rosaline shakes her head. "How did I get such a smart little sister," she says with a note of something that JJ doesn't understand in her voice. "Smarter than me, for sure." JJ almost bursts with pride.

That Christmas JJ gets a book of butterflies and Rosaline gets a beautiful necklace that JJ instantly adores. It has a butterfly on it, wings made of pale yellow stones, and she's jealous because Rosaline doesn't even _like_ butterflies. It should be hers.

She finds a yellow butterfly in her book. She doesn't even have it in her collection. " _Colias hyale_ ," she reads, wanting to see Rosaline smile and call her smart again and maybe even put the necklace on her and decide that it suits JJ much better. Kailo tries to help her by switching to a butterfly as well and perching on the collar of her dress with his wings spread.

Rosaline doesn't answer. She just looks sad.

Two months later, Rosaline catches her trying the necklace on and lets her have it. She's almost happier than the moment when Rosaline called her smart. Almost. Kailo turns into his yellow butterfly again to celebrate.

Three days after that, JJ comes home from school and there's an ambulance in the drive and her mother's jumper shines gold in the sunlight, like she's spilt glitter down herself.

They tell her that her sister is gone.

Kailo stays a butterfly from then on, but after that JJ throws all the rest of her collection away.

Rosaline was right. There's nothing beautiful about death.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _But it did not all happen in a day, this giving over of himself, body and soul, to the man-animals. He could not immediately forego his wild heritage and his memories of the Wild. There were days when he crept to the edge of the forest and stood and listened to something calling him far and away."_

― **Jack London** , **_White Fang_**

Aaron is twenty when Halaimon finally settles and he feels a rush of red-hot temper when he sees her that reminds him of his father. He shoves it back and calms himself before he says anything, settling his face into a cool mask he intends upon perfecting.

"Why?" he asks simply. He'd say she's a wolf, but he can feel in his heart that that's wrong. She's not a wolf, not a dog. Stuck somewhere between.

It hits uncomfortably close to home.

She looks irritated. "Maybe if you knew why, I wouldn't be like this," she snaps cryptically, and they don't speak for a week.

When they finally begin talking again it's stilted and awkward for a long time and he can't look at her without hearing his father's voice.

 _"_ _Why are you such a disappointment, Aaron?"_

Nothing ever really changes. He just learns to live with it.

He's sure that he's just not meant to have what he wants.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _Hunting hawks did not belong in cages, no matter how much a man coveted their grace, no matter how golden the bars. They were far more beautiful soaring free. Heartbreakingly beautiful."_

 **― Lois McMaster Bujold,** ** _The Warrior's Apprentice_**

 _Jason_. To heal. The healer, physician.

 _Gideon._ Derived from the Hebrew gidh`ōn. The hewer, one who cuts down.

Gideon puts a lot of stock into names and meanings, contemplating everything, always looking for a deeper meaning. A healer who is also a warrior – Gideon, the name given to a hero from the Old Testament who led the Israelites against the Midianites. He's a paradox. Two opposing natures.

 _Houlihan._ An old Gaelic name. Translates to 'proud'.

No arguing with that.

The first artwork he ever owns is a print by John James Audubon of two red-tailed hawks battling in mid-air. Warriors. No one was ever healed by the talons of a hawk.

His grandfather gives it to him to celebrate Houlihan settling as a red-tailed hawk, but Gideon isn't done considering just what exactly it means yet. He likes to take his time with these things. He hangs the print above his bed and examines it carefully, trying to see what he's missing.

Hawks are hunters. They soar, gloriously.

They heal no one, but they help the hunter. They bring home prey for him.

Jason Gideon joins the FBI because of his name and the hawk on his arm. A warrior, yes. Maybe not a healer, but he will help people with his work, he's determined. And proud, perhaps to his ultimate downfall.

He puts a lot of stock in names, after all.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _Even a hare will bite when it is cornered."_

 **\- Chinese Proverb**

"What do you want to settle as?" Jack asks Arelys one day, because Pa always says the best way to learn something is to ask questions. Dad doesn't seem to agree, but Jack likes to side with Pa on these things since he's quicker to slip him extra pocket money or sweets before dinner.

Arelys ripples out of the otter form she's been lolling about in and he's not surprised when she lays as a hare in front of him. "This, of course," she says with a twitch of her stubby tail. She looks thoughtful before flickering quickly through different hare species. Jack can name most of them, although a few stump him. He pulls a face when she turns white.

"Too prissy," he tells her, rolling onto his stomach and leaning over the edge of the bed to get a closer look. His shoes scuff the wall and he makes a mental note to check for marks before Dad sees it and tells him off for wearing shoes on the bed. "When we become FBI agents, no one will take us seriously if you're too pretty."

"Aureilo is pretty," she says hotly, switching back to the European hare form, a slimmer, less-worn version of Pa's daemon.

Jack thinks of the thick bar of old scarring on the side of Aureilo's head where his ear should be and the wonky twist to his front leg, and smiles. "Yeah, but he's badass too. You have to be badass like him to be an FBI agent."

She goes quiet before surging upward into a slender wolf with thick grey fur. The bed dips under the sudden weight, Jack's shoes scuffing the wall again with a _thud_. "We could be like Dad," she offers, wagging her tail uncertainty. The gentle movement looks odd on the fierce looking wolf.

He wants to agree. It would be cool to have a wolf daemon. Elliot has a wolf daemon, and everyone is always saying how cool it is…

It doesn't feel right. He doesn't need to tell her this, she already knows. She drops back down into a hare and looks dejected. "You should be a hare," he says finally.

"Why?" she asks, because he's not the only one who's grown up learning the art of endless questions at Pa's knee.

He knows why. But it's hard to verbalize, and the other thing they've both learnt is to think things through logically before speaking. Dad always says that no one listens to anyone who wastes words, and Pa always looks guilty when he says this. So he tries to figure out what he's thinking before saying it.

The memory is like an itch and no matter how much he reaches for it the details escape him. He wishes he had a memory like Pa's. It would make school so much easier, as annoying as it is to grow up with a parent who never forgets homework or chores or hasty promises made to try and weasel out of being in trouble.

Thick grey fur, delicately spotted. A rumbling purr. Running up a huge flight of stairs that never seemed to end. A dark box.

A hare standing between him and a monster that reached for him with a clawed hand, protecting him. Never letting the monster reach him. Safety.

"Because it feels right," he says softly, not wasting words. There aren't words adequate to describe that memory, or nightmare, so he doesn't try. He's not sure which it is and he doesn't want to ask.

She ripples again and her form shifts ever so slightly. Longer legs than before and golden-orange fur with ears tipped in black. She laughs. "How about this?" she teases, and tests the new form about by bouncing around the bed in a tight, wild circle that sets both their hearts going mad from the thrill of it. "I think everyone can appreciate the neatness of it. Uncle Dave certainly will."

He grins at the jackrabbit daemon, his jackrabbit daemon. Despite both his dads attempting to outlaw bad jokes, Uncle Dave had been successful in giving him a healthy appreciation for puns. "Perfect. Stay as that."

So she does.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."_

 _-_ **Antoine de Saint,** ** _The Little Prince_**

Her mother loves crosswords, so Alex loves them too. There's nothing more satisfying than finding the word that slips in the boxes neatly and filling them out carefully with her pen. She uses pen because unlike pencils, they're unforgiving. You have to be sure before you put the word down.

It makes her confident.

She mouths the words she learns to herself, savouring each one. There's a great power in words, she can tell. When the girls at school tease her because Tod is small and scrappy she can smile and find words that will make them laugh, make them see things her way. Teachers like her because her words are clever and quick and present her well to the world.

And when her brother is cruel, she can use words to hurt him more than her fists ever could, until he turns red and shakes with anger. If he strikes her first, he gets in trouble, even though she probably deserves it more. All because she knows more words than he does.

"Abyssopelagic," Tod says carefully. "Pertaining to the depths of the ocean. Imagine if I was a fish, how far down I could swim. We know more about space than we do the bottom of the ocean. Think of what we could see."

She shudders, the word powerful enough to make her feel like she's swimming down with him, the pressure crushing her, drowning. "Don't," she begs him, and he promises not to after teasing her for a while about it.

"Alexithymia," her mother teaches her one day. "Being unable to find words to describe your emotions."

"It has your name in it," her brother mocks her. "Perfect for you, weirdo."

Tod shifts to a polecat and hisses at her brother's mongoose daemon, causing an outbreak of hissing to fill the kitchen. Their mother makes them write letters to each other to say sorry. She's pleased when she sees the amount of words underlined on Scott's. It means she's got to him.

Danny shakes his head at both of them, but she knows she's his favourite and Scott glowers.

"A baby swan is called a cygnet," she informs one of her boyfriends, one whose name she forgets years after he breaks her heart. He was the first to but not the last.

"Tod should settle as a swan," the boy replies distantly. "You're pretty enough to suit it." It's a lame attempt at flattery, and it doesn't work.

"I think we'll keep our feet on the ground," she says firmly.

Later, they find the word they like best, at least for that week. Short and sweet and to the point.

"A note played on a hunting horn signifying that the animal hunted has been killed," she reads off the paper, tapping at the crossword with her pen. She's sixteen.

"Mort," Tod answers instantly, watching her with a fox's shape, slim and cunning and fierce.

 _Mort._ Latin _mors_. Death.

"I would hate to be hunted," she says to him. He thinks about it.

"Let's be the ones to do the hunting then," he says finally and she feels him settle into the shape as though it was always going to be this way. Maybe it was. After all, they know words. They've always known this word.

 **tod**

1\. A fox.

1\. A male fox; a dog; a reynard.

2\. Someone like a fox; a crafty person.

Alex also believes in fate.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _A magpie can be happy or sad: sometimes so happy that he sits on a high, high gum tree and rolls the sunrise around in his throat like beads of pink sunlight; and sometimes so sad that you would expect the tears to drip off his beak."_

― **Colin Thiele** , **_Magpie Island_**

"How are you feeling, Penelope?" The therapist clicks her pen and smiles at her over the desk, the kind of instant, pasty smile that people wear when they're getting paid to give them. Penelope glares at her from under her black fringe and wonders how much that smile is worth.

Her seventh therapist in two months and this one is the worst. She'd introduced herself with a cheery, 'Treat me like your friend,' and Penelope had happily complied by ignoring her completely.

After all, she doesn't have friends. She doesn't need them.

"Daemon settled, has it?" the therapist tries again. She attempts to remember the woman's name. Marcie? No, that was the last one, the one who smelt like cats and used the word 'phase' a lot… Rebecca? Probably. It's irrelevant anyway. She'll be gone soon too. Everyone goes away in the end.

Tupelo clicks his beak together and shifts slightly on her shoulder, eyeing the therapist's glittering diamond ring. Penelope stares at it too as the woman moves her hands on the desk, the light catching the stone. It's better than looking at her.

"How's your foster family going? They seem to like you. Are you fitting in well with them?"

No. They smile too much and don't mean any of it. She hates them. She doesn't need a foster family; she can look after herself. She doesn't say any of this, just sighs loudly and sinks lower in the seat. The last therapist would have given up and sent her out by now. This one is irritatingly persistent.

Her shoes pinch. They're new. Her foster parents had insisted on them, stupid shiny black shoes to look respectable in her new stupid school uniform that itches and pulls at the shoulders. Tupelo digs his claws into her shoulders, tearing at the material, as though sensing her simmering anger.

Maybe she can walk through mud on the way home and ruin them. Then they'll have to let her have her boots back.

"You know," the woman says after a long, awkward silence. "It's okay to still be grieving, Penelope. There's no proper time-frame for grief, everyone is different."

"I'm not grieving," she snaps, before closing her mouth firmly. She hadn't meant to say that. Damn. She sulkily finishes her sentence, sensing that she's lost some battle here. "It's been three years. I don't care anymore."

The woman looks sad and it's a realer emotion than her smile and it makes Penelope's stomach twist into a hard knot that somehow hurts her throat as well and makes it hard to swallow. "Grief isn't always so black and white. There's a whole range of grey in the middle. You're not just going to wake up one day and find that everything that's happened to you has gone away overnight."

Penelope closes her eyes and wishes the woman would go away, and take her stupid platitudes with her.

Nothing happens to her anymore.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _If a ferret bites you, it is almost always your own fault."_

 **\- Phil Drabble**

Arlo settles as a ferret and Elle thinks that it might just be the most perfect thing in the world.

Papi lifts an eyebrow and grins at her when she comes down to breakfast with Arlo on her shoulder.

"You know, they used to call ferrets _'little thieves'_ ," he teases her, tickling her under the chin as he heads for the door, his uniform pressed and gleaming and she's bursting with so much pride that even Arlo chitters excitedly. "I hope I don't end up having to collar you one day. My little Elle, a ferret burglar. Imagine the men at the precinct, they'll never let me live it down."

"Don't tease her," Mamá scolds him, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

Three months later, he'll be dead and she'll be no one's _little thief_ anymore.

But Arlo is constant and she still thinks he's perfect.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _The inauspiciousness of the owl is nothing but the inauspiciousness of the man who thinks that owl is inauspicious!"_

― **Mehmet Murat ildan**

David Rossi wakes up one day and finds Eris leaning over him with one great talon tapping on the end of his nose.

"Wake up," she says redundantly, seeing his eyes open. "I'm me."

He stares at her, resisting the urge to smack her foot away from his face. Wide, orange eyes set under bushy horns stare down at him, ringed with whiskery grey feathers brindled with black. He can't see the rest of her. Her beak is close enough to his face that his view is entirely made up of blurry feathers and a wickedly hooked beak.

"No shit," he finally says, rolling out from under her. It takes a second for it to sink in and she makes a frustrated hooting sound at how slow he is. When it hits, it's fast and thrilling. "Oh fuck, you've settled!"

She awkwardly hops off the bed onto his headboard and spins her head around, watching him with the orange eyes he'd woken up to. And will wake up to everyday now because this is _him_. "Magnificent, aren't I?" she preens, spreading wings that seem impossibly long and powerful. He has to admit, she certainly is.

He'll never tell her that though. People already think he has a complex.

"You couldn't have picked something a little less… ostentatious?" he asks, because no one at school with bird daemons has anything near this big or handsome, and he's still rankling over that bitch Lisa Cooper calling him a narcissist. Says she, with the peacock daemon of all things. "What are you, anyway? Some sort of owl?" (Eurasian Eagle Owl, he discovers later, as if she couldn't possibly get any cooler)

This really isn't going to help with his reputation.

Eris rolls her eyes. "I have no idea. I've never been this before. You're so clever, you work it out." She catches sight of his expression and looks sympathetic for a second, realizing his nervousness about his classmates' reactions to his daemon's form. "Let's face it, David. We were never the type to go unnoticed."

She has a point.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _Most people love butterflies and hate moths," he said. "But moths are more interesting - more engaging."  
"They're destructive."  
"Some are, a lot are, but they live in all kinds of ways. Just like we do."_

― **Thomas Harris** , **_The Silence of the Lambs_**

Henry likes the night time. He likes the stillness of it, the way it feels like time has stopped and he's the only one left in the world. It should be a lonely feeling but it's not. It's great. He even goes around the house with Dad's black electrical tape and carefully covers all the blinking lights on stuff, to make it darker for him and Filimay. Dad lets him.

Fi likes it too, swooping around his bedroom as a graceful owl or a chittering bat. She even tries a fox one day but quickly switches back, craving the freedom of wings. Henry already knows that she's never going to be content on the ground, because he gets the same feeling sometimes. Like there's more than what they see, just waiting for them to find it.

He remembers being a kid and deciding for the first time that night was his favourite. His logic was pretty sound, and Uncle Spence always appreciated sound logic, so Henry liked to think these things through thoroughly.

Mama and Daddy hunt monsters, it's their job. Jack calls them superheroes but Henry doesn't agree. They're much, much cooler than superheroes. Superheroes need magic and special powers to save people but their parents do it without any of those things, and that's even better.

Since Mama and Daddy mostly work during the day, except when Mama has to go to different places on their jet, Henry had assumed that the monsters they hunt only come out during the day too. Therefore, night must be safest. It was pretty good logic for a kid, he reckons – at night, often Mama and Daddy were home and just down the hall and Henry never felt safer than when he could sneak down to their room on soundless feet and crouch with his ear against the door to hear the sound of Daddy snoring.

He's good at sneaking, the best. Even Jack can't sneak as well as he can, and Jack is two years older and better than Henry at almost everything, even the Xbox. The only person Henry can beat on the Xbox is Charlie, and she's a baby _and_ a girl so it doesn't count.

It was _good_ logic and Uncle Spence had laughed when he explained it and launched into one of his really complicated lectures that Henry really wants to understand but always gets lost about five words into. Jack says that he understands them but Henry is pretty sure he's lying. Mama just laughs and says that she doesn't understand him half the time either, so Henry shouldn't feel bad.

Once Henry had stayed over at Uncle Spence's and he'd wanted to show off his sneaking skills, so he'd waited until Uncle Spence and Aureilo had fallen asleep, and then him and Fi had snuck around and turned all the lights off on everything. For some reason there was always lights on in Uncle Spence's apartment – Henry had figured it was because he didn't have his mama there to tell him off for wasting the electricity. The apartment was cool in the dark, unfamiliar and pitch black. He remembered having to be careful not to walk into anything with Fi guiding him as a bat.

Then his Uncle had woken up and even without Fi's super hearing, Henry had heard the fright in his voice when he'd called out for him.

He'd felt bad then, once the lights were back on and he saw how scared his Uncle really was, just like when him and Jack had stayed up too late and accidentally watched a scary movie on the TV and Jack had screamed. Jack had gone all white and shaky when the murderer had leapt at the screen, and that was just how his Uncle had gone without the lights on.

Henry had cried because he'd scared him and because he was a little bit frightened himself since his Uncle was an adult and shouldn't ever be scared of anything. Uncle Spence had reassured him and tucked him back in, but the kitchen light had stayed firmly on the rest of the night and when Henry woke up in the morning, his Uncle looked tired and sad.

After that he'd gone off the dark a bit, until Fi had reasoned that if Uncle Spence was scared of the dark, well maybe he just needed someone to keep him safe during it just like Henry's parent's kept him safe during the day.

So when Fi had settled as a fluffy moth with huge white wings marked with eyes that delighted Henry with their creepiness, everyone had been surprised but him. After all, he'd always known they needed wings and Uncle Spence needed someone who could see in the dark to make up for Aureilo's daytime vision.

Later Uncle Spence would show him books filled with glossy photographs of moths and Henry would settle his fingers gently on the page showing the _Heniocha dyops_ and memorise the words carefully. 'Marbled emperor'. It was perfect.

Uncle Spence must be glad to have an emperor standing guard over him at night, Henry thought proudly.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 _"_ _I am what I am. I would tell you what you want to know if I could, for you have been kind to me. But I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer."_

― **Peter S. Beagle** , **_The Last Unicorn_**

Pa talks a lot but very few people actually listen to him. Aureilo talks even more but most of the time people pay attention because he's very good at being noticeable. Some people are like that. They might not be loud, or brash, but everyone pays attention to them. Aureilo and Pa are the same creature, although they seem so different, but when Aureilo speaks people hear him.

Maybe it's because he's a daemon and daemons aren't meant to talk at all, so people are shocked by his behaviour. Charlie's quite glad of it, really. If it's left to Pa to do all the talking, everything takes four times as long as it should.

In stark contrast, Jack can yammer on like nobody's business but what he says is neither interesting nor attention-getting. Charlie assumes that's a part of being a brother, always being dreadfully uninteresting. Daddy assures her that he'll become interesting again with age, that boys are always boring at fifteen unless you're also fifteen and then they become interesting again.

It's all so complicated, it gives her a headache and makes Taithleach cranky and liable to bite.

Charlie likes to pay attention to people. Both her parents are profilers, basically her whole family is except for Henry and Jack. They're nothing yet until they grow up. She thinks about becoming a profiler as well because it seems to run in the family, but she's seen the scars on Daddy's chest and the ones on Pa's knee and neck. Profiling is more dangerous than just watching people. She's not entirely sure she likes the idea of that.

She's in trouble again now for watching people. They call her parents in. Even when she's in trouble, which she is a lot because she hasn't quite got Aureilo's knack of knowing what to say or Hal's cleverness at knowing when to say it, she likes her parents coming in. She's proud of them.

They're a handsome couple; Daddy tall and broad with his dark hair, piercing eyes and his great wolfdog daemon just as intimidating as he is, and Pa just the opposite. Slender and wiry with wild hair and a battered hare daemon. She knows the teachers talk about them, and not just because of her.

"She's intelligent, of course, or she wouldn't be in this class," her teacher says. "But I just don't think keeping her with her age group is helping her at all. She's bored – she needs a challenge. I can't get her to engage."

She kicks at the floor and wonders how many possible outcomes this meeting will result in. The probabilities aren't really in her favour. She swallows around the congealing anxiety making her stomach roil. She counts doubles like Pa taught her, keeping her from drifting off in her head. It's hard to count and pay attention, but she manages it.

"Charlie doesn't like to talk," Daddy says because Pa is oddly quiet for once. She watches him. He avoids eye contact. His hands twitch slightly. He's guilty. Tait ripples at her side and becomes a snake, slithering around her ankles and binding them to the chair playfully. Aureilo shakes his head at them.

The outcome is as expected, in the end. Daddy tries to smooth down the ruffled feathers of her teacher, Pa distances himself from the whole thing, and Charlie says nothing. Then the teacher tentatively mentions therapy and counselling, the m-word is said and her parents leave without shaking her teacher's hand. She'll probably have to change schools again. She hates change.

She can pretty much write the script at this point.

"It's my fault," Pa says in the car, as though she's not there at all and she knows that they're talking over her but expecting her to pay attention. Tait turns into a cat and unsettles his fur angrily, but they're not looking at her and she doesn't want to kick the seat to make them do so since that makes her feel small and childish. "I was the one who said we should keep her at an appropriate age level and challenge her at home."

"You were miserable in school," Daddy replies, glancing back at her as they stop at the lights. By then she doesn't want them to look at her anymore, feeling bad, so she looks away. Hal leans her head on the back of Charlie's chair and huffs in displeasure. "We decided on it together. If Charlie is unhappy, she needs to tell us."

Charlie says nothing. There's nothing worth saying.

Pa comes to her room that night and that's unusual enough. There's no point reading her bedtime stories, she's far too old at nine and besides, she's memorized them all. Tait rolls over and shifts into a larger cat, spotted and sleek, pawing at Aureilo's ear.

"Are you unhappy?" Pa asks quietly, and there's a sadness in his posture that makes her chest ache for him. It scares her how much she loves him. Sometimes she looks at him, and Daddy and even Jack, and she's scared by how _much_ she loves. It feels dangerous.

She doesn't mean for him to be sad. She shakes her head vigorously. He looks around at the posters he'd decorated her room with, science and physics and books. Things he loves. She's not as interested in them. Knowledge is fine, but dull. Easy. Where's the challenge? She doesn't know what she is yet or what she likes.

Daddy calls her a drifter, but he doesn't say it with a smile.

Pa sighs. There's things he's not saying and Aureilo doesn't help him. The room is painfully quiet except for their breathing. Finally, he seems to fold in on himself, giving up. For the first time he looks old and worn. She opens her mouth but nothing comes out.

"Goodnight, Charlie," he says finally, and kisses her cheek. She blinks and her eyes are hot. "I love you."

Jack comes to her room after, and she wipes her tears on Tait's fur quickly so he doesn't see and tease her. He's not as awkward as Pa, he just drops onto her bed and Arelys sprawls next to him, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded behind his head. She knows he'll be able to tell she's been crying anyway; her face is flushed. He might be nice enough not to mention it. He's nice sometimes.

"They're fighting over you again," he tells her, and his eyes are hidden behind the blonde curls of his fringe that he's decided to grow out. It looks stupid on him, like one of those silly dogs that herd sheep. She doesn't tell him that. "You know; Dad agrees with your teachers. He thinks you need to see a shrink. He'll have you in there eventually, Pa's running out of excuses."

Pa probably doesn't disagree; he just knows there's not much use. He's written papers on child psychology after all. And she's read them.

Jack closes his eyes and looks pleading. "Why can't you just talk? You used to. Why'd you stop?"

She doesn't know. When she finds out, she'll tell him. Probably even before her parents because even though his hair is stupid and he's boring, she loves him so much it hurts.

He gives up as well and leaves her alone with her daemon. She switches on the radio before curling up in bed, the quiet of her room deafening without it.

Sleep comes slowly and painfully, and she wakens abruptly in the middle of the night with the sense of something changing.

Light reflects off the _tapetum lucidum_ in Tait's feline eyes, turning them into glowing mirrors. He's a serval and she's floored. There's no reason for it, not really. Why a serval?

She takes a deep breath and touches his fur and it suddenly hits her that he's a _serval_. For now, and forever. Settled.

Something settles in her as well and she smiles, the anxious drifting feeling she battles daily easing very slightly. She slips out of the bed and pads up the hall to Jack's room, pushing the door open after knocking. Tait follows, soundless.

Jack looks around from where he's sitting at his computer, frowning at her. "You're supposed to be asleep," he scolds, standing up and walking towards her without waiting for an answer. His voice cracks slightly. He's getting older. He won't be fifteen for long.

He'll be someone soon, and where will that leave her?

She breathes again. Slowly. She can calculate the hours since she's spoken last. She does, occasionally, when she can think of how to without the drifting becoming too much. Somehow, she doesn't think that's going to be too much of a bother now.

Maybe it will a little.

"He's a serval," she says finally, her voice odd and unfamiliar. Jack freezes. "Tait is."

Jack almost grins but then he looks nervous. Waiting for her to stop again. "Would you like to tell Daddy and Pa?" he asks, cautious. "We can wake them up?"

She thinks about it.

"Yes, please."

He takes her hand and leads the way.


	15. Our End

**Chapter Fifteen: Our End**

 ** _Halaimon has spent a very long time patiently waiting._**

 ** _Until now._**

 **.**

 **AN: Warning for character death.**

 **.**

 _"_ _If I die, I will wait for you, do you understand? No matter how long. I will watch from beyond to make sure you live every year you have to its fullest, and then we'll have so much to talk about when I see you again."_

 **Jeaniene Frost**

 **.**

"Dad? You still there?"

Aaron shakes himself, momentarily distracted by the flickering dance of a bug on the inside of the kitchen window as it beats itself mercilessly against the pane in a frantic bid for freedom. Hal is watching it too, her eyes ticking back and forth with sharp focus, her tail still. Outside, it's a glorious day.

Sometimes, they feel as trapped as that bug. He wonders what species it is. Charlie could tell him, if she was here.

Spencer could have.

"Sorry," he says into the phone, turning his back on the fight for survival going on in his kitchen and walking slowly to the living room. "Mind is a million miles away. How's your sister?"

There's a huff of air against the mouthpiece on the other end that brings a wry smile to his face. Both of his children are huffers. Anytime things don't go their way, they huff. Spencer's influence. He used to huff as well.

It strikes him sometimes that he lives in an empty house that nonetheless overflows with broken memories. They're scattered like glass in the carpet; he thinks he's picked them all up and he's safe, until one night he's walking through the hall and he hears the ghost of a laugh, a smile, a shard of remembering in his heel that leaves him bleeding.

"Annoying," Jack says, and Aaron can hear a voice scolding him in the background. "Annoying!" he repeats, louder, and Aaron smiles again. "Seriously, you'd think she had a cold instead of a bullet hole. Every time I turn my back, she's trying to rearrange the library or paint a fucking wall or sort the cutlery by age and wear. And my god, if she goes through my research papers again and tries to tell me my hypotheses are flawed _I'm going to glue Tait to the roof._ " There's an indignant squawk from someone, probably Tait.

"Ah well," Aaron says, pacing along the front of the bookshelf without reading the spines. Dave's books, most of them. Dave's memories. "She doesn't like to be bored. How's Angie?"

Jack falls quiet. "Cranky," he says finally, and Aaron steps on another shard, this time Haley when Jack was a growing potential in her belly. "She and Charlie keep ganging up on me about his name."

His focus snaps away from the books and Haley's temper and onto his son. "Oh?"

"They want… I just think he should have his own name. It's his life, he doesn't need to walk in someone else's footsteps throughout it."

Aaron's heart twists, because he'd known this conversation was coming eventually. He just hadn't known from which of his children, and from what end they'd be approaching it. "You know he wouldn't have wanted…" he begins, before trailing off because that particular shard is jagged and hurts more coming out than going in.

Jack is quiet again for a long time so Aaron takes to pacing again, his footsteps echoing hollowly through the house. His head thumps, and he glumly accepts that he's become the kind of old man who requires a nap to make it through the day. Hal is still in the kitchen, still watching the bug, waiting patiently for something more to happen.

Nothing is going to happen to them anymore.

"We settled on James," Jack says finally, and Aaron can hear the smile in his voice. "We compromised."

"Where's the compromise in that?" Aaron asks with a soft laugh. It wasn't often Jack won out when both of the headstrong women in his life ganged up on him.

"James Spencer," Jack says, and Aaron's heart twists. He can't reply, not for a long time. "Dad? You don't like it?"

"We love it," says Hal, padding into the living room and waving her tail slowly. "Tell him we love it."

"We love it," Aaron repeats obediently, and looks at the picture of baby Jack and Spencer on the mantle. Spencer beams back, as though expressing delight at becoming a grandfather from the moment long past when the camera button had clicked down and captured him.

They talk more, both conscious of the distance between them, with Jack working in New York and Charlie recuperating with him, the looming arrival of the newest Hotchner hanging over their heads like the promise of spring, and Aaron in DC in the home he'd shared with Dave and filled with memories.

They say their goodbyes and it's usual, nothing extraordinary. Until the next phone call, the next promises of visits and travel, the next click of the receiver that leaves Aaron in this half-life of waiting for something he can't quite remember.

"I love you, Dad," Jack says with an audible smile, and Aaron's heart aches again. "Maybe it's time you came here. Angie's already said, there's always room for you. And you can help with James, when the midget bothers to arrive."

"Maybe," Aaron says quietly, and his head pangs again, a slow growing ache behind his ear. Another thing to add to the list of pains. "I love you too. And the girls. I'll call you Sunday."

They hang up and Hal is in the kitchen again, watching the bug. Aaron leans over and opens the window. The bug is confused by the push of the outside air against him, knocking against the edges once, twice. _Tock tock._

Then he vanishes without as much as a thank you. Hal doesn't move, just tilts her head and watches him go. Life has lately become filled with moments like these, slow and patient and yet, fleeting.

"What are you doing?" he asks her finally, rubbing his ear and considering his bed.

"Waiting," she answers, and closes her eyes. "Still waiting."

He doesn't ask for what, because even if he did she probably wouldn't tell him.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

He dreams of standing at the foot of a slowly sloping hill, looking upwards at a tree perched precariously on the horizon. Hal is at his side, panting slightly, her tongue lolling between the glittering points of white of her canines. It's dark, the dusty kind of dark of a summer night, and her eyes gleam in the faint moonlight.

"I'm not walking up there," he says, looking up the hill and expecting a pang from bones that aren't as agile anymore. It doesn't come, and he looks down to find hands that are smooth and unlined. Figures. Only in his dreams is he young. Even in his dreams, his head still aches.

"You don't have to," Hal says, and presses against him with a fierce kind of affection that she rarely shows. "We'll wait down here."

"For what?" he asks, looking around, but she doesn't answer, just rolls onto her side on the grass and yawns widely. He sits next to her. Nothing happens. Even his dreams are boring. His head thumps. He's tired.

The pad of paws behind them and something twines around his back, purring. When he looks around, there's nothing there. He reaches out and a damp nose taps against his palm, rubbing thick fur against his hand.

"Thank you," Kaelion murmurs, becoming the suggestion of a lynx in the night, green eyes glowing. Then he's gone, and Aaron looks down at Hal and raises an eyebrow.

She shakes her head and closes her eyes.

Wings overhead. Craning his neck backwards, he expects an owl, but it's a hawk that alights on a branch nearby and peers down at him, saying nothing. Waiting as well. He doesn't speak to him; Houlihan was never much of a talker. Hal ignores him.

More wings and this time, it's exactly who Aaron expected.

"Hello idiot," Hal says, waving her tail, and Eris hops along the ground awkwardly so Hal can bump her great grey muzzle-except her muzzle isn't grey here, but black, and in even in the dark she looks young and vibrant and _alive_ again-against the owl's barred chest. Aaron forgets to breathe with the wash of longing the sight brings him. "We've missed you."

"We'll never admit it," Eris says, turning her head and examining Aaron. "You disappoint us, Aaron. You know, you didn't need to stay in the house. We left it to you to do as you please. If we had of known you were going to quietly fade away in it, we'd have had it demolished."

"I refuse to be scolded by a dream," he replies shortly, rolling his eyes at the bird. He can barely talk through the hammering of his heart, the sick tension rising in his belly, adding to the headache, leaving his skin clammy and his mouth dry. He knows who comes next, who should be here already. It's his fucking dream, there's no way he can't be here.

"If that's what you still think it is," Eris whispers, and takes off, her wings silent. She calls once, the soft _woo_ fading into a whisper, and Hal heaves herself up.

"Time to go," she says, looking away from him and up the hill.

"I said I'm not walking up there," he snaps, staring at the tree line behind them where the hawk had sat. He can't leave yet. He's not here, it's not time to wake up.

"I know," she replies, and presses her muzzle against his hand one last time, her tongue rasping against his skin. "I love you. Goodbye."

And she bounds off, with more agility than she's shown in years, the moon casting the illusion of life in fur he's gotten used to describing as tired. Up the hill and away from him without as much as a backwards glance. He leaps upright and tries to chase her, legs shaking, to stop her from separating them, tense with the anticipation of the pain the distance will bring.

Further than she's ever been and suddenly she's on the crest and a blurred shape against the sky, and he can't catch her. "Hey!" he calls, slipping on the grass and landing heavily on one knee. "Hal! Wait!"

She turns and looks down at him, and he realizes she's not alone.

The hare stands on its hind legs and Aaron's heart stops. His one ear cocked cheekily, he bounds around the wolf in a celebratory March dance, before leaping over the crest and out of sight.

Halaimon follows and for the first time in his life, Aaron is without her.

"Aaron," says a voice from behind him. He turns, half expecting Hal, or maybe even Aureilo. It's a dream. Anything can happen, right?

Hazel eyes and a quick smile meet him and the pain in his skull fades. Everything fades, except this smile and this voice and this man.

Oh.

"You left me behind," he says and his voice is young and thick with the hurt long ago felt but never forgotten.

Spencer shrugs, and shakes his head to get that wild hair out of his vision. "I waited," he corrects him, laughing. "You just took the long way. Come on. We don't get to go with them this time."

Aaron takes his hand and they go together.

Finally.

Always.


	16. Timeline and Comments

**Chapter Sixteen: Timeline and Comments**

 ** _The chapter where I summarise many lives._**

 **.**

 **.**

So, this chapter isn't actually a chapter at all. Well, it is. Kind of. It is both an announcement chapter, and also a kind of summarising chapter.

For those of you on AO3, you have a lovely little bunch of timelines I made on Paint dot net because I am a graphical GENIUS (shut up, I am), which cover the lives and rough dates of our main characters from the Everything I Never Knew Universe. Those of you on , you have the same information but in dot point form and without the pretty colours. This is basically so I can have a reference point to jump to and add information to as I go, but one that you guys can also access if you have any inclination to.

(As a warning, some dates are kinda dicky. The canon dates are A HOT MESS and my dates are A HOT MESS and basically canon has Hotch passing the bar exam at 19. SO DON'T TAKE THE DATES TOO SERIOUSLY. As an example, this timeline has Jack being ten years older than Charlie; whereas, in the actual story, he's seven years older. But the rough timeline and order are there)

As of this chapter, I'm marking Peroration as complete. That's not because it's done – although it is for the foreseeable future. I'm focusing on Encore now, but I will very likely return here later if I find I have scenes that don't fit anywhere else. I've also massively reorganised the chapters of Peroration, rewritten some of them, and retconned a few characters in. Those of you who have read it don't have to read it again, it's mostly to iron out a few plot holes and to keep everything in some sort of order. I also added art (for those of you on AO3)!

Anyway, I'll stop rambling. If you're here for story, I'm afraid there is very little. I've tried to make the dot points as fun as possible, so there may still be something to enjoy here, but for now this is my final hurrah to Peroration for now. Hope to see you all over on Encore when that begins updating properly sometime soon!

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **1970's**

\- **2 November, 1971:** Aaron Hotchner is born. This is, if you want to get _technical_ , probably the start of our story. His mother was present. His father was not. Later, in a fit of pique, the eight-year-old Aaron Hotchner would comment to Halaimon that if given a choice, his mother probably would have given the whole thing a miss as well. Halaimon laughed at the time, but they both felt guilty for thinking it.

\- **5 November, 1971:** After three days and no sign of Aaron's daemon forming, his father walks out. This is probably a very human moment for the man, this fear of his son dying (no child has ever lived longer than six months without a daemon, and no one would call those six months living), and he would have had everyone's sympathies, had he not referred to Aaron as the 'half-wit' on the way out and made his wife cry.

\- **11 November, 1971** : Halaimon finally arrives, a barely visible tuft of grey-brown puppy flopped overtop of the baby Aaron in his bassinet. As they later discover, her late arrival would really set the tone for how she lived her life.

Very much on her own terms.

\- **September, 1976:** Aaron begins school. Aaron doesn't like school.

\- **September, 1976:** Aaron receives the dubious honour of being the fastest suspended child in the history of his elementary school. His teacher would be heard to remark to the principal, as almost-five-years-old Aaron sat outside in a chair far too big for him and trying to coax Halaimon into eating a potted fern to see if it was fake or not, that; "I really don't know _how_ he even got hold of so much paint." Hal, Aaron decided in that moment, looked really very cool in blue.

That night, they discuss that maybe Aaron should begin school next year.

\- **September 1976:** Aaron decides that he made a mistake in immediately dismissing school. Once he's able to sit down again without flinching, he politely requests to be allowed to go back. His request is ignored, and both he and Halaimon learn a valuable lesson.

Anywhere is better than here.

\- **September, 1977:** Aaron goes back to school. He does much better this time.

\- **May, 1977:** Aaron makes a friend. Jasper Dwight has two sisters, a TV in his bedroom, and a daemon that can turn into _much_ cooler forms that Hal, who resolutely seems determined to be as boring and canine as possible. Aaron spends a brilliant summer borrowing Jasper's sister's bike and never going home. They make the mistake of asking Jasper back to their house one night, forgetting that their father had been paid the night before and was steadily drinking his way through it.

\- **August, 1977:** Aaron returns back to school after the summer and Jasper quietly tells him that he doesn't really want to hang out anymore. It's not really Aaron's fault, and Hal tells him so as they hide behind the cafeteria wall at lunchtime and pile stones into wobbly pyramids (definitely _not_ crying, thank you). It's just that sometimes people don't know what to say, and they run away from that uncertainty. Hal is much smarter than Aaron is.

That never really changes.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **1980's**

\- **6 January, 1981:** Sean Hotchner is born. Paarthurnax, who almost immediately takes the barely formed shape of a basset hound just like their father's, is an instant hit. "See, that's how it's supposed to happen," Kyle Hotchner announces, "Right on time!"; Hal and Aaron exchange a look. They're not quite sold on this brother thing just yet.

\- **27 November, 1982:** Spencer William Reid, as an absolute opposite to the man he'd one day ( _eventually_ ) fall in love with, arrives five days early and doesn't make a sound. He's still damp, still shell-shocked, and certainly not wholly convinced that this is any better than what he had, when a nurse looks down at him and gasps. In the future, as it turns out, Spencer and his daemon are far too easily parted. But in that one singular moment, a tiny hand curls around the slender form of a _("infantile hares are called 'leverets', Mom, and they're born precocial, which means they look after themselves right from birth")_ baby hare. Aureilo is quite satisfied with this greeting when informed of it in the future.

\- **Winter, 1987:** Aaron, with firm disregard for decorum, manages somehow to both get into and almost immediately get out of a relationship with one Haley Brooks. Her sister, Jessica, is thoroughly impressed with how quickly he pissed her off, and Aaron is far too conscious of his own failings to stick up for himself. Maybe if he hadn't had Halaimon there—unsettled and seemingly inclined to be the last daemon in the _school_ to do so—to remind him that he's a mess, things would have gone differently. They try again and it lasts two years, but they both saw the end coming long before it arrived.

\- **September, 1987:** Spencer Reid starts school. It takes him two weeks to end up with his own copy of a key to the library, and a month to start moving through grades. By the end of the term, he's playing chess against the principal and winning almost every match. This is a good thing for him, because succeeding in school is a nice distraction from the lingering sensation that he's failing at home.

Diana Reid quits her job and doesn't say why.

\- **January, 1989:** Kyle Hotchner hits Aaron for the last time. He's seventeen-years-old, broad-shouldered, and Hal's been increasingly taking bigger and bigger forms as the years grate painfully by. The bruise on Kyle's chin hasn't even purpled up properly before he throws Aaron out, but Aaron is glad for it. He spends the rest of that year couch-surfing, and neither of them regret it. Sean is furious with them both. To an eight-year-old, it's the worst kind of betrayal. They never really solve this.

\- **March, 1989:** Aureilo and Spencer discover that seven-years-old is _not_ old enough to be in sixth grade. They also find that they're exactly the right size to be locked into the arts supplies cupboard after everyone has left for the day. Aureilo offers to chew their way out, but instead Spencer gives him a pack of crayons and tells him to test which colours taste different. Aureilo is dubious about the scientific validity of this experiment, but he does it anyway because the crayons belong to the kid who locked them in there, and he can't think of a better way to get back at them. The next day, after being let out by a shell-shocked teacher and making their crayon-y way home, they're pulled from that school.

\- **August, 1989:** Aaron starts college. Aaron also starts working his way through the college. After four 'flings' in eight months, two of which are very almost relationships, he asks Hal why she never lets him get close to anyone. "Why invite our own destruction into our beds?" she says snidely, and refuses to discuss the matter further. He resigns himself to being lonely.

\- **November, 1989:** Every elementary school is the same. And they go through enough to tell. But it doesn't matter. Spencer and Aureilo turn eight. The next school year, they're to start secondary school. It'll be different, right?

Aureilo seems to think so.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **1990's**

\- **August, 1990:** Spencer and Aureilo begin high school. It works about as well as can be imagined. The teachers are delighted by the novelty.

The students are also delighted by the novelty, but for far less prosocial reasons. After the third day, they learn to stay within sight of a teacher at all times.

It still doesn't always help.

\- **18 July, 1991:** Aaron is twenty years old when Halaimon finally settles. They're commended on the ferocity of her wolf form by people who don't know better. Aaron knows better. She's not what he wanted. She's not at all what he wanted; instead, she's trapped somewhere between a wolf and a dog, and perfectly content with being like that. He learns to live with it, eventually.

He's sure that he's just not meant to have what he wants.

\- **10 March, 1991:** William Reid leaves. This, Spencer reflects later, probably had a greater effect on his ability to form attachments than he'll ever admit. Aureilo, hearing Spencer reflect upon this, tells him to get his head out of books and maybe try talking to people for once instead of blaming his father on their inadequacies.

Secretly, they're both a little relieved he's gone.

\- **15 March, 1991:** Diana Reid doesn't get out of bed. It's the first time. It's not the last.

Spencer and Aureilo don't go to school that day. Instead, they pretend to be adults on the phone to try and get the gas reconnected, and then take her purse and go to the store for groceries. Stuff that's good to eat. Stuff that she'd buy for them, if she was feeling better.

That done, they read to her. What more can they do?

They're ten years old.

\- **4 July, 1993:** Kyle Hotchner dies of lung cancer. Aaron finds out from a message on his answering machine. He doesn't return the call.

\- **8 July, 1993:** Four days after his father's death, Aaron gets accepted into law school. This pleases both Aaron and Halaimon greatly. At least their father never had a chance to take credit for 'raising them'. They never look back.

\- **August, 1994:** Spencer, at the ripe old age of twelve, starts college. Their roommate wants to be an FBI agent, and is vocal about the benefits of the job. Spencer would rather a job without the possibility of being shot. Aureilo, on the other hand, is intrigued. "We can't just spend the rest of our lives studying and collecting degrees," he says hotly.

Spencer proceeds to do just that. It takes him seven months to get his first bachelor's.

\- **August, 1994:** When Spencer wakes up one morning, puts on his glasses, and just _knows_ , it comes as no surprise to anyone that Aureilo has settled as a hare. He's perfectly content with this.

\- **March, 1996:** Aaron gets his degree of Juris Doctor at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Around the time he lands his first job as a federal prosecutor, he also meets back up with a familiar face.

Later, they'd wonder why they bothered, but for now, him and Haley do just fine together. For a little while. He thinks he might marry her this time.

\- **April, 1998:** Spencer is sixteen years old and drunk the first time he sleeps with someone. The ethical and moral implications aside, he's not completely sold on the process. Later in life, Aaron Hotchner would ask him about this night and there were things that Spencer told him and things that he didn't. The six-year age gap between him and the twenty-two-year-old Ethan was one of those things, as was the alcohol. The regret came part and parcel with both those things.

He also doesn't mention the seven-month relationship that came from it, mostly because it didn't feel much like any relationship he'd ever seen depicted in any kind of media.

He knows it's not going to last, and Aureilo hates every last minute of it, but for those seven months, it's almost like being normal.

\- **September, 1998:** Sick of feeling useless in the face of the brutal and monstrous crimes he prosecutes, Aaron leaves law to become an FBI agent. This does not go over well with Haley. "You'll always put your work first," she says, and he can't help but admit that's very likely true.

Aaron, until that point, had a dog daemon and everyone compared him to his brother. When asked at the FBI intake office to list Hal's name and species, he writes _grey wolf_ in clear print for everyone to see. From then on, he's Hotch, and no one questions him on that.

His exceptional work lands him under the eye of one David Rossi when he's working at the FBI field office in Seattle. Rossi has a prestigious reputation, a partner with a royally huge stick up his arse, and an owl daemon who delights in trying to see if she can flick office supplies into Hal's large ears.

They didn't know it then, but that was the start of the best friendship either of them would ever have.

\- **June, 1999:** The transfer to Quantico was inevitable. Rossi wanted the 'Hotshot' Hotchner on his team, and Gideon was ambivalent enough about the whole thing to let it happen. Profiling, Hotch finds, is everything he'd been looking for.

They're still not sure what they want, him and Hal, but they're pretty sure they're on the road to working it out.

And they're not lonely.

Honest.

\- **June, 1999:** The end of Spencer and Ethan's 'relationship'. It's… amicable enough.

\- **November, 1999:** Spencer is working on his third bachelor's and his first PhD when he meets Jason Gideon for the first time. Jason Gideon isn't entirely sure what just walked into his office, but he's pretty sure the BAU doesn't have 'babysitting' in the budget.

By the end of that meeting, they both know what they want.

And in a few years, they get it.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **2000's**

\- **2000:** Sonnet knows before Diana does. Sometimes it's like that. Sometimes when they were kids it was Diana who wouldn't get out of bed, so Sonnet would walk them through the process of cooking dinner. Sometimes, it was Diana making him lunch for school and Sonnet pacing the hallway snarling and searching for danger only he could sense.

Most days though, Spencer was alone.

On this day, him and Aureilo stand flanked by the men from the Sanatorium and neither of them can hide their guilt. Diana begs for her books. Aureilo presses his head into the side of Spencer's leg and tries not to listen.

Sonnet looks Spencer in the eyes and asks, _"How could you?"_

He doesn't have an answer to that.

\- **2002:** Rossi retires. It's lucky he chose now, really, on the high of a career filled with more successes than failures. Hotch knows he's still haunted by past cases, but aren't they all?

In two years, it's Boston, and the only good thing about Boston is that Rossi isn't there.

It still feels like the end of something.

\- **2004:** When Gideon introduces their new team member, the oddly eccentric Spencer Reid, Hotch suggests that if they give him a chance, he might surprise them all.

He's absolutely correct.

\- **2005:** Hotch isn't sure what made him do something as ridiculous as sleep with Spencer Reid. "Temporary insanity," he suggests to Hal one day, long after he and Spencer had finally exchanged vows and the topic comes up again.

"I think that's the sanest we've ever been," Hal responds, and Hotch thinks she might, as always, be right.

\- **November, 2005:** It's supposed to be a night of meaningless sex. The fact that it's made it onto this timeline suggests otherwise.

Really, the only good thing to come out of him calling Haley this night is Jack.

But then again, there's nothing he cherishes more than his son, so it's a pretty big good thing.

\- **February, 2006:** He sends JJ and Reid to interview Tobias Hankel without thinking twice.

He never stops regretting that. Aureilo turns to Dust in his hands for the first time _(but not the last)_. Spencer dies and is brought back on the filthy floor of a shack in the middle of Georgia, with no one by his side.

Three days after he went missing, they find Reid next to a grave he dug himself and the still cooling body of his captor. By his side, there's no hare; in his eyes, there's no life.

Something of him never leaves that shack.

\- **May, 2006:** It takes three months for Reid to hit this point, and it's a fast, unstoppable descent.

He fills the syringe with enough dilaudid to make the pain and the loss of his daemon go away, for just a little while. Then he adds a little more.

It's always good to have options.

Hotch finds him on the kitchen floor and part of him is almost tempted to leave him there. If it was him—if it was _Hal_ —he wouldn't want to be brought back. But he doesn't. He saves him.

Aureilo comes back.

And they continue, somehow, stronger than before.

\- **7 August, 2006:** Jack Hotchner is born and Hotch has the strangest feeling that he's been waiting his whole life for this moment as he holds his son for the first time, still wet and kicking furiously. Arelys arrives two days later, and for that moment, they're a family.

\- **November, 2006:** Frank comes into their life like a looming spectre and when he leaves, he takes Gideon with him. Gideon leaves his credentials and a letter addressed to Reid and nothing else.

It's the nature of the job, but that doesn't make it hurt less.

\- **28 September, 2006:** September brings the month of Reid coming home, with a long-forgotten smile tentatively teasing at the corner of his mouth, and it also brings David Rossi back into the fold. Hotch had suspected the man wouldn't be able to stay away for long, but honestly, is four years even a retirement or just a really long holiday?

September also brings the moment they finally realize that there's no point running away from something their daemons have known for a long time now.

It brings the moment that the two of them become an 'us'.

\- **28 October, 2008:** Henry LaMontagne is born, and Reid loves him instantaneously. Henry, in the coming years, proves over and over that he's the best godson a man could want for and it's only with some difficulty that JJ and Will manage to stop Reid from repeatedly informing him of this and giving him a complex.

Reid's not _wrong_ , however. Garcia backs him on this opinion, even if she's a lot subtler about it.

\- **April, 2009:** An anthrax attack leaves Reid fighting for his life and Hotch fighting for his sanity. They both win, but on Garcia's hard drive from this day on, there's two recordings. Two goodbyes. Diana Reid never hears hers.

Aaron Hotchner does, but he can only bear to listen to it once.

\- **18 July, 2009:** Foyet. Many, many years from now, Hotch reflects on how much this one singular man took from him in this moment. Haley, Jack, Aureilo.

And, eventually, he took Spencer too.

\- **25 November, 2009:** Foyet begins his games with a grisly memento nailed to Jack's bedroom door. He ends it at the mercy of Hal's teeth.

Not in time to save Haley though.

Out of all his regrets, this one is Hotch's greatest.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **2010's**

\- **11 March, 2011:** Agent Emily Prentiss is allegedly murdered by internationally renowned terrorist Ian Doyle. Succumbing to the injuries sustained in the attempted retrieval of Doyle, she's declared dead on the operating table after a failed attempt to save her life.

At least, that's the story they tell.

They bury her in spring.

\- **21 September, 2011:** Emily Prentiss returns. The story of her death ends here.

So does Spencer and Aaron's relationship.

Spencer's always handled betrayal better than abandonment.

\- **16 May, 2012:** JJ and Will's wedding is beautiful, emotional, long-awaited, and also a goodbye. They all know Emily's leaving, that this is the last night of something.

They're all just glad she got the chance this time to say goodbye.

\- **16 January, 2013:** Maeve's death is cruel. It serves no purpose. If there's a God, some decider of Fate, someone responsible for all the turns of Spencer's life, this is the one thing he could never forgive them for.

She should have had so much longer than the time she was given.

It's a thought that, sixteen years from now, many would have about him.

\- **22 May, 2013:** It's really not the start of something new when they finally end up back together. Rather, for both Hotch and Reid, it's very much like the continuation of something they'd both started a long time ago and only put aside for a short time.

This time, it lasts.

\- **14 January, 2014:** Reid manages to get himself shot _again_ , so Hotch deals with it in the only way he can think to.

He proposes.

\- **17 April, 2014:** Aaron and Spencer's wedding is really just perfunctory. There's more than a ceremony and a thin gold braid looped around their daemons' necks tying them together.

There's their whole lives, and beyond.

\- **August, 2014:** Charlie becomes an idea, and very quickly, a reality.

\- **22 April, 2015:** Charlie Hotchner-Reid is born. There's some heated discussion on her family name. Reid wants her to be a Hotchner. Hotch, on the other hand, is utterly determined that she be a Reid. Jack is confused as to why any of it matter at all, and everyone else thinks that they're all being idiots.

Spencer solves it. "Hyphenate it then," he snaps, as close to real anger as Jack has ever seen him, and it's really way too early in the morning to be yelling at each other over toast and eggs. Dad opens his mouth to respond, his eyes dark and glittery like there's real trouble coming, but Spencer's not done. "Hyphenate Jack's too at the same time. They're both my children. They can both bear my name."

There's silence and then Spencer gets all shocked and worried like he's not sure what he just said. "I mean," he mumbles, going red, and Jack is giddy.

Dad stands up and hugs Spencer close. Charlie comes a week after this conversation, but oddly, this is the moment Jack remembers the clearest about the occasion. "Don't you dare take that back," he says into Spencer's hair, and that's how Jack ends up a Hotchner-Reid as well. He's not really sure why it mattered. Spencer didn't need to adopt him to make him his son.

Taithleach is a hare when he forms, and Spencer is happy but also sad because something happened to Dad that no one is talking about. Jack tries to cheer him up. "Hares are born with their fur on," he announces, because he'd looked it up. "That means they don't need their parents for very long."

All in all, it probably wasn't the best way of cheering Spencer up, but it did make Auntie JJ laugh.

\- **September, 2016:** Filimay settles as a European emperor moth, and she's stunning. Henry couldn't be happier.

\- **30 September, 2018:** Earlier this year, JJ rings Emily to tell her about the oncoming arrival of a brother for Henry. Emily laughs once, and the sound is strained.

"Oh good," she says, and JJ can hear her hesitating. "They'll be so busy fussing over you, they won't have time to bother with me."

She's wrong. When Margo Prentiss arrives on the 30th of September, they're all there to fuss. Spencer and JJ both gain a goddaughter, yet another to add to the collection they're acquiring.

Vetiver arrives six hours later, and he's a mouse. Sergio is affronted. Reid intrigued. "Maybe she'll be quiet and well-behaved," Garcia suggests from where she's hovering over the baby bundled up in Mark's arms.

Emily doesn't believe that for an instant. If her daughter is anything like her, she'll be a spitfire by age two, mouse or no mouse. As it turns out, Emily is absolutely correct.

\- **1 November, 2018:** Michael LaMontagne arrives with a lot less fuss than his brother. His daemon, when she arrives partway through the night unnoticed and unremarked upon until morning, is an oddly alert marmoset who explores the confines of the small bassinet with wobbly, uneven steps. No one ever notes the oddity of Michael's daemon's initial form, because by the time she's noticed, she's already seen Kailo's butter-yellow wings and changed form to try them out. Rehalicon continues on doing unexpected things for the rest of their lives, and most of them go unremarked upon.

After all, odd is really quite normal for their little family.

Reha never takes the marmoset form again, until the day she settles, eight years from now.

\- **7 June, 2019:** Hank Spencer Morgan is born. Jermiahs is a soft pawed kitten for just a few days before shifting to an awkwardly scrabbling duckling just like her mama's mallard daemon. Morgan, fully aware of the effect that his father's death had on him, leaves the BAU.

Not forever though.

\- **Winter, 2019:** Arelys settles, to David Rossi's never-ending glee, as a jackrabbit. The jokes are never ending, and most of them come from Aureilo himself. Jack doesn't mind.

It's well worth the jokes to see Arelys next to their pa's daemon, and see how much they've grown together. Smaller and thinner with wider ears, she's beautiful, and everything he ever wanted in a daemon. He couldn't have lived up to the promise of a daemon like Halaimon, the careful mix of dignity and power in her form, that's just not him. No. Jack knows that Arelys is as him as can possibly be.

It feels like finally finding himself.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **2020's**

\- **2021:** When Diana Reid is diagnosed with early onset dementia, he takes Charlie to visit her. It takes her two attempts to remember his name. Charlie she knows immediately. She asks after Jack. The day he leaves, she's the clearest she'll ever be again.

"How lucky I am to have a son and grandchildren so clever they can do all my remembering for me," she says to him, and this, he can tell, is her being a mom. Always a mom, even now, even when he's been looking after her for longer than he should have. Charlie understands far too much of what's going on, and she's far too quiet on the drive home.

 _("You won't ever forget me, will you?"_ she asks uncertainly, two weeks later, and he promises her he wouldn't dare. _"Aureilo will remind me."_ )

\- **Winter, 2021:** Charlie, Reid notes, is hurtling past every developmental milestone but one.

She's quiet, growing quieter, and by the time she's seven years old, she can't speak at all.

 _"_ _Progressive mutism,"_ the doctors say, but none can say whether it will get better. Therapy doesn't help, not at first, but they have to try _something_.

They have to.

\- **8 May, 2022:** Diana Reid dies, and Reid can't help but feel it's his fault in some way.

He finds absolution in the end of a needle and the loss of his family.

He gets better.

\- **2022:** Morgan takes Jack and Charlie camping as a way to let Hotch and Reid reconnect over everything that drives them apart.

It ends in disaster.

\- **Summer, 2024:** Tait settles as an African Serval. He's gangly, awkward, and somehow _more_ than what he had been. Charlie finds that she feels like more too, like a part of her that was uncertain has finally been decided.

It makes things easier. Just a little.

They wake her parents up to tell them, and stay up all night celebrating even though they have school and work early in the morning. Pa tries to cook happy pancakes for breakfast, but burns the smiley faces off the tops so they look like they're melting.

 _("Dad? Look. Tait_ _ **is**_. _")_

She doesn't lose her voice again, even if sometimes from then on she'd rather not use it.

\- **Autumn, 2024:** His dad tells him not to do anything he wouldn't do (but he says it with half a smile on his face, like he knows Jack's not going to listen to _that_ advice), and his pa rolls his eyes and adds, "But probably do a whole lot more than I did," and Charlie almost laughs herself sick over that. College, Jack finds, is filled with a whole heap of distractions that his well-meaning but probably slightly sheltering family didn't do an amazing job preparing him for. Or maybe they did, and he just never listened.

He spends a very large chunk of his first year either drunk, hungover, or on the mid-ground between the two in strangers' beds, and all in all, it's a pretty great time.

Somehow, and he attributes this to Spencer's influence, he still passes. Barely.

He does better the next year because it occurs to him that Charlie will probably be there by the time she's fifteen, and he can't bear to be outdone.

\- **30 January, 2029:** He's only forty-seven when they tell Spencer Reid he has five years of live left owed to him. That's a generous estimate.

Before going home after they give him the news, he goes to the park where he and Aureilo used to play chess together against the men who gathered down there, and he plays one last game. It's his last concession to himself. He might be the one running out of time, but he's fully aware that he won't the one left picking up the pieces of his death. He wins two games and almost forgets why he's there in the pleasure of the game.

Then he gathers himself together and goes home, ready to spend the last five years of his life living for those he's leaving behind. Aureilo is silent.

They get seven months.

\- **14 August, 2029:** Spencer Reid surprises Aaron Hotchner one last time, and he does so by dying.

Nothing is ever really the same again.

\- **2029:** Hotch reacts to his husband's death by withdrawing into himself and his loneliness. Jack reacts by firmly attempting to keep his broken little family together.

Charlie just reacts.

It's the first time she's ever been drunk, and she doesn't know what way is forward or down or how to get back up. It occurs to her and Tait that if their pa was here, he'd show them the way.

Instead, there's Anton and his hands and his mouth, and she regrets a lot of things later but this is one of the most. They don't do anything she doesn't want to, but that doesn't rule out a whole lot, because the only thing she does want to do is feel _something_ other than sad, and she'll do anything to reach that goal.

She doesn't tell Jack because she can't bear the shame of it.

Later that year, Charlie brings Anton to a family dinner. The affair is quiet, haunted, and Anton is too loud, trying too hard, too much. Charlie takes her family's disapproval of him as proof that she's always going to disappoint them, and doesn't let JJ hug her goodnight.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **2030's**

\- **Spring 2030:** It's decided (almost) unanimously that a holiday is needed. Jack declines, and Hotch still can't bear to leave the home that echoes with _his_ presence. So, Charlie, Henry, Michael and Will pile in on Emily in London and spend the whole time feeling gloriously touristy and terribly frivolous. It's almost easy to forget what is, or rather, who isn't waiting for them back home.

Charlie buys him a terribly wonky ceramic Big Ben because he would have loved it, and then breaks it later that night when she realizes she can't ever give it to him. She ignores every text from Anton, something that JJ is quite vocal about expressing her pleasure over.

When time comes for the holiday to end, they don't all return.

"It's just for a little bit," Emily says to Hotch over the phone, and Hotch doesn't answer. "She's not coping in DC, Aaron."

He agrees, but they all know it's not for a little bit. And when Charlie mentions offhand about having been to tour some of the universities in London ( _"I'm just curious, Dad. Anyway, how's Jack?")_ , that suspicion is confirmed.

Jack never really forgives her for this.

\- **Summer, 2030:** Margo and Charlie delight in their mutual dissatisfaction with each other.

Charlie, Margo decides, is an absolute _princess._ Emily has never paid anyone as much attention as she pays the skinny, nerdy girl in their guest bedroom, and Margo's fed up with her moping around _their_ house. She takes quiet delight in taunting her whenever Emily isn't looking, and Tivvy helps by hiding her things in increasingly clever places. Charlie never confronts her about this. Some genius.

Margo, Charlie decides, is a spoilt child and hardly worth the time.

They do eventually reconsider these unflattering opinions, but it takes time.

\- **Autumn 2030:** Charlie is accepted into the Imperial College London. Hotch, Rossi, and the LaMontangnes travel to London to celebrate, something that Emily shudders to imagine happening again after she's finally managed to chase the whole motley collection out of her flat.

Jack declines.

 **Winter, 2030:** Hotch moves in with Rossi and no one is surprised. It takes another two years for Hotch to agree to sell the home they raised their children in, and even then he changes his mind three times before finally signing the papers.

He knows he can't stay still, but moving forward seems harder yet.

\- **2034:** **[EVENTS OF 2034 REDACTED DUE TO ONGOING INVESTIGATION OF THE RETALITORY ACTIONS OF CURRENT AND PAST MEMBERS OF THE BEHAVIOURAL ANALYSIS UNIT AND THEIR FAMILIES]**

During this time, Tivvy settles as an Abyssinian cat with a cocky demeanour. It's the first feline form he's ever taken, and the final form he'll ever take again, and Sergio is absolutely chuffed.

\- **28 February, 2034:** He survived a week with only Charlie, Margo, and the threat of their impending death, so taking the plunge and finally asking Angela Garrell out seems easy. In theory.

And it is, really, although it takes place in a KFC parking lot while waiting for their nuggets to be cooked, and he panics half-way through and accidentally calls her 'Charlie', something that neither of the girls ever let him forget.

To celebrate, Charlie offers to take them both out for dinner.

They accept.

\- **2038:** _Charlie Reid & Margo Prentiss are oddly reminiscent of a certain other odd pair_, David Rossi thinks when he sees them together at Christmas. He's unaware of just how reminiscent. In fact, if their daemons were a wolf and a hare instead of two cats (albeit, one much larger than the other), then he'd have to start making jokes about certain people being back from the dead to haunt him. As it is, after a few, he accidentally refers to Charlie as Reid Light, which she is thoroughly and vocally (but secretly pleased) disgruntled about.

Margo's cut her hair short, the easier to keep it out of the way when she applies for the Police Initial Recruitment Test, with her eye on Scotland Yard. Charlie's quite fond of the cut. Margo's quite fond of Charlie's newly attained status as 'Doctor', despite Jack having beaten her to the title by a good six years.

It's only one night, and its Christmas, so Charlie is pretty sure it doesn't count. The alcohol doesn't help with that theory.

But neither of them forget it.

\- **2038:** Charlie comes home to meet with a man who'd long slipped out of their lives. The shadow of her father is heavy on that meeting, and she leaves more satisfied than when she'd arrived.

The choice to join the FBI, after that, seems almost like fate.

She might be following in her father's footsteps, but she's doing it her own way.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **2040's**

\- **1 January, 2043:** Angie wakes up one morning and Jack is sitting on the end of the bed holding a sock that isn't his, decorated with what appear to be dancing carrots. "Do you want to get married?" he asks eventually, still staring at the sock, and she's just awake enough to say yes.

She never does find out the sock belonged to.

\- **17 April, 2044:** Jack and Angie's wedding, according to David Rossi, is the event of the year. He manages to convince everyone else of this only by getting absolutely smashed and almost giving Angie a concussion when trying to teach Jack how to 'carry her over the threshold' like a gentleman. They forgive him, because he also makes Hotch dance with him, and then makes Charlie dance with them both, and Jack hadn't realized how much he'd missed the sight of his father dancing until he saw it again. It's thirty years to the day since Aaron Hotchner and Spencer Reid vowed to love each other from this life into the next. There's an empty seat next to Jack's dad, and after the speeches they fall quiet for a moment.

Spencer would have loved it.

\- **Fall 2049:** The Spencer Reid Research Centre for Neurodaimological Degenerative Diseases is a mouthful, and the research students and scientists who occupy it soon fall into the habit of just calling it Hare Hall. This nickname sticks. Jack doesn't find a treatment for the illness that took his Pa from him, but he does teach the student who eventually does, long after even Charlie is beginning to show her age. On that day, as they present the award to the woman who was once Jack's student and is now his teacher, Jack sits with Charlie on one side and JJ on the other, and couldn't be prouder of her. The room is loud with all the people who aren't there to see it.

He's never been sold on the idea of an afterlife, but this is one of the moments he hopes that he's wrong. He'd give anything to see Spencer Reid's reaction to this.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **2050's**

\- **20 December, 2054:** David Rossi leaves the earth in much the same manner as he spent his time on it; with as much of a fuss as possible. "You better say nice shit about me at my funeral," he informs Aaron, because they're very aware that he's probably not leaving the hospital this time. "I'll fucking know if you don't, Hotshot."

"How about you just don't die?" Hotch suggests, but they both know that's never worked before.

Three hours later, he's gone, Eris with him, and Hotch doesn't know how to be alone anymore.

\- **Summer 2055:** Charlie inherited something other than her eyes and her brains from her father. Explicitly against Morgan's firm instructions—and with his ringing snarl of, "God-fucking-damnit Charlie Reid, I'm gonna shove my boot up your—" still humming through her earpiece, she takes her vest off. And of course, just like her dad, it goes wrong. But also right. They save the victim. The bullet skims Charlie's arm and slams into Tait, and the pain is unimaginable.

When they wake up, it's three days later and Margo is perched on the end of their bed with Tivvy on her lap, eating Charlie's blue Jell-O. "You're an idiot," she announces pertly, hitting the nurse call button. "You're supposed to keep the vest on."

It's a nicer version of the tirade she gets from both her Dad and Hal later on.

"You love me anyway," she responds croakily, and closes her eyes.

Margo is silent for a moment. "I guess I do," she says, finally, and takes her hand.

\- **7 January, 2056:** Fifty-six is a bad year. It's the year Emily got 'that' news. In the interests of ending this tale (or at least, our retelling of it) on a happy note, we'll merely discuss the events that led to the death of Emily Prentiss.

It was, Emily commented after, a terribly mundane way to die. And slow. But she didn't go quietly or calmly.

It takes two years to beat her, but Emily fights the cancer every step of the way, and Margo takes some solace from that. Sergio tells her that if she or Vetiver cry, he'll haunt them just to mock them about it.

The threat doesn't stop them.

\- **12 August, 2056:** Aaron Hotchner hangs up the phone from talking to his son about the oncoming birth of his grandson, goes to bed, and never wakes up. His family don't know it, and in the grief of their loss would find little solace in it, but he hasn't really gone all that far.

He'd merely caught up to the man who'd started his journey so many years before. Together, finally, and this time for good.

\- **27 November, 2056:** James Spencer Hotchner-Reid arrives right when expected, but far too late. He never meets either of his grandparents. Jack is heartbroken over this. Angie and Charlie do their best to celebrate the birth of the youngest member of their clan, but in the end, it's an unexpected source that does the work for them. James' daemon is a tiny spit of grey-brown fur huddled into the blankets covering him, and it takes them a few minutes to realize what she is. And what she is, is a hare.

"Welcome to the family, Reylo," says Arelys, and Reylo opens amber eyes and yawns in reply, before snuggling in deeper and falling back to sleep.

It's the ending of something, but also the beginning.

And the story continues.


End file.
